7f 


THE  TRELOARS 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  JOURNAL  OF  A  RECLUSE 

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THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK 


THE  TRELOARS 


BY 

MARY  FISHER 

Author  of  "The  Journal  of  a  Recluse,"  "A  General 

Survey  of  American  Literature,"  "Twenty-five 

Letters  on  English  Authors." 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1917 
BY  MARY  FISHER 


The  author  wishes  to  acknowledge  her  indebtedness  to 
German  Gomes  de  la  Marta,  and  to  N.  Hernandez  Lu- 
quero,  for  their  faithful  translation  into  Spanish  of  the 
futuristic  manifestoes,  under  the  title  of  El  Futurismo. 

The  author  picked  up  the  translation  from  a  street  book- 
stall in  Barcelona,  Spain ;  and  has  made  use  of  a  portion 
of  it  for  the  greater  part  of  the  speech  delivered  at  the 
banquet,  in  the  seventeenth  chapter  of  The  Treloars,  in 
order  to  avoid  what,  if  invented,  might  have  seemed  either 
sheer  buffoonery,  or  ridiculous  exaggeration. 


2135406 


THE  TRELOARS 


CHAPTER  I 

"  WELL,  I  am  mighty  glad  that  you  are  back  again, 
Max.  I've  really  missed  you  very  much,  and  I've  won- 
dered many  a  time  why  you  didn't  drop  me  a  line.  Five 
years  is  a  long  time,  without  a  word  from  a  fellow." 

"  Yes,  but  it  seems  a  good  deal  longer  than  that  to  me, 
Dick.  I've  been  growing  some,  since  I  saw  you  last." 

"  I  should  hope  so.     No  one  wants  to  stand  still." 

"  O,  I  mean  more  than  that.  My  precious  eyes  have 
been  opened  to  a  lot  of  things,  I  can  tell  you." 

"  That  may  be,"  retorted  Dick,  laughing ;  "  but  have 
they  ever  been  opened  to  a  fairer  scene  than  this  ?  " 

Richard  Treloar  and  Max  Gietmann  were  walking 
along  the  Tunnel  Road  that  winds  its  way  from  Berkeley, 
California,  to  the  high  rounded  hills  that  make  the  city's 
lovely  background,  and  at  this  question,  Dick  seized  his 
companion's  arm,  turned  his  face  toward  the  west,  and 
pointed  to  the  magnificent  view  that  lay  before  them. 

The  sun  was  setting.  From  the  height  where  they 
stood,  they  overlooked  that  sinuous  strip  of  Pacific  coast 
where  lies  the  chain  of  cities  and  suburban  towns  of 
which  the  most  important  are  San  Francisco,  Oakland, 
and  Berkeley.  Far  out  at  sea,  the  Golden  Gate  melted 
into  the  gleaming  horizon  with  the  vivid  glow  that  gave 
it  its  name;  and  nearer  the  foreground,  the  deep  glow 
softened  into  a  delicate  milky  haze  shot  through  with 
purple  and  rose,  blurring  the  sharp  outlines  and  obliterat- 
ing the  ugly  trail  of  civilization,  and  touching  with  beauty 
what  else  had  been  a  fault.  On  either  side  of  the  young 
men,  fold  upon  fold  of  softly  colored  rounded  hills 
opened  to  their  view,  affording  lovely  glimpses  of  wooded 
and  fertile  valleys,  with  here  and  there  a  homestead  nest- 
ling in  them.  The  time  was  June,  and  the  hills  had  lost 
the  vivid  green  color  of  winter,  but  were  not  less  beauti- 

3 


\ 


4  THE  TRELOARS 

ful  in  their  golden  summer  garb,  purple  patched  where 
the  shadows  lay.  Close  at  hand,  on  the  winding  stretch 
of  yellow  clay  road,  a  group  of  eucalyptus  trees  raised 
their  heavy  plumes  of  dark  green  foliage  against  the  pale 
azure  of  the  evening  sky,  and  filled  the  air  with  an  agree- 
able, aromatic  odor. 

It  was  a  scene  to  delight  any  heart  unless  its  capacity 
for  joy  in  beauty  were  utterly  dead;  and  Dick's  hand- 
some, clean-cut  face  expressed  in  every  mobile  line  of 
it  that  his  heart  was  alive;  but  the  heavier  face  of  his 
companion  was  quite  passive,  except  for  a  half  con- 
temptuous smile  that  flitted  across  it.  He  hardly  looked 
at  the  scene  before  him ;  but  suddenly  his  eye  lighted  up, 
and  pointing  to  an  automobile  that  was  swiftly  approach- 
ing, he  said : 

"There,  that  is  what  beauty  means  to  me:  —  the  tri- 
umph of  intellect  over  matter,  the  multiplication  of  man's 
power  by  machinery,  the  conquest  of  time  and  space." 

"That's  all  right  in  its  place,  too,"  answered  Dick, 
"but  its  place  is  far  below  the  first  one.  Nature  beats 
us  so  tremendously  that  it  seems  childish  to  me  to  boast  of 
what  we  can  do  in  comparison." 

"  Dick,  if  it  were  worth  while,  I'd  feel  sorry  for  you, 
but  as  it  is,  I  feel  sorry  for  myself.  I  thought  I  had 
rid  myself  of  all  silly  dependence  on  others,  but  I  was 
cherishing  an  illusion.  I  had  counted  on  you  to  help  me 
in  the  propagation  of  new  ideas;  but  I  find  you  are  as 
hopelessly  rooted  in  the  past  as  a  hardy  skunk  cabbage 
in  its  native  swamp." 

Dick  threw  back  his  head  and  laughed  heartily. 

"  For  the  sake  of  '  auld  lang  syne,'  Max,  do  make  it  a 
little  milder  —  come  up  a  notch  or  two  in  the  vegetable 
line,  and  liken  me  to  a  lily  or  an  iris,  or  anything  less 
malodorous  than  a  skunk-cabbage.  I  don't  mind  the 
swamp  a  bit,  but  the  cabbage  hurts  some." 

"  No,  I  won't.  There's  nothing  fragrant  in  your 
moldy,  stale  opinions.  They  smell  of  old  age  and  de- 
cay." 


THE  TRELOARS  5 

"  They  do,  do  they  ?  And  so  you  still  have  some  old- 
fashioned  prejudices  as  to  odors!  That's  encouraging; 
keep  it  up.  I  dare  say  that,  like  Dad,  you  can  be  beau- 
tifully inconsistent  —  can  roar  like  a  lion,  and  be  as  mild 
as  a  sucking  dove." 

Max  flushed.  He  took  himself  too  seriously  to  relish 
raillery;  but  willing  to  hide  his  confusion,  he  asked: 
"  How  is  your  father,  anyway  ?  " 

"  The  same  fine,  old,  impractical  chap  he  always  was. 
I  don't  think  you  will  find  him  a  day  older.  And  he 
revels  in  his  interminable  debates  with  Dr.  Parker  just 
as  much  as  ever." 

"  I  used  to  think  that  the  doctor's  chief  attraction  at 
your  home  was  your  sister  Margaret." 

"  O  pshaw !  Max,  that's  all  nonsense.  Parker  is  as 
old  a  man  as  father,  or  at  any  rate,  not  much  younger.  I 
think  Dolly  is  about  Catherine's  age ;  not  more  than  two 
or  three  years  younger,  anyway.  By  the  way,  Dolly 
Parker  is  growing  into  a  beautiful  girl." 

"  She  was  a  very  pretty  child  when  I  saw  her  last, — 
dark  hair  and  eyes,  and  cheeks  like  roses." 

"  Yes,  but  she  was  a  chubby  little  thing  then,  and  she's 
shot  up  now  into  the  shapeliest  girl  you'll  see  anywhere. 
If  you  hadn't  set  yourself  up  for  invulnerable,  I  should 
be  warning  you  that  you  are  running  into  dangerous 
quarters.  Dolly  and  her5  father  will  be  over  for  dinner, 
so  you'll  see  her  to-night." 

"  Well,  you  needn't  worry  about  me,  Dick.  I  am  en- 
tirely free  from  the  supreme  illusion.  Woman  means 
no  more  to  me  than  a  passing  fancy,  or  a  need  of  the 
hour ;  a  soporific  or  an  excitant,  like  opium  or  cham- 
pagne." 

"  Shame  on  you,  Max !  But  then  I  can't  believe  you, 
and  if  I  did,  I  shouldn't  envy  you  your  freedom.  I'd  as 
lief  be  a  telegraph  pole,  as  a  man  of  flesh  and  blood  that 
felt  no  response  to  the  loveliest  thing  on  earth.  At  any 
rate,  come  to  life  —  be  your  old  self  —  while  you  are 
out  home.  Ah,  here  we  are!  Does  the  old  place  look 
natural  to  you?" 


6  THE  TRELOARS 

The  two  young  men  had  reached  a  turn  in  the  road  that 
descended  into  a  narrow  valley,  at  the  bottom  of  which, 
and  partly  ascending  the  opposite  gentle  slope,  lay  a  beau- 
tiful farm  with  fields  of  ripening  grain,  rich  pastures  on 
which  cattle  were  grazing,  and  in  the  foreground,  shel- 
tered by  wide  spreading  live  oaks  and  tall  eucalyptus 
trees,  stood  the  house  with  its  roof  of  dull  red  tile  and 
its  walls  of  gray  stone,  built  after  the  prevailing  style 
of  California  homes,  in  the  simplicity  and  grace  of  Span- 
ish architecture  in  the  mission  days. 

"  Yes,  it  looks  just  the  same,"  Max  replied,  "  even  to 
the  yellow  poppies  on  the  hillside.  It  is  a  delightful 
little  retreat  from  the  world.  It  is  all  right  for  your 
father,  but  you  ought  to  be  tumbled  out  of  the  nest  to 
try  the  speed  of  your  wings." 

"  How  is  it  that  you  happen  to  remember  the  poppies  ? 
I  should  have  thought  that  a  pretty  little  thing  like  that 
would  have  escaped  you." 

"  I  remember  that  Margaret  loved  them,  and  in  the 
summer  time  always  had  a  big  glass  bowl  filled  with 
them  on  the  drawing-room  table." 

"  And  so  she  has  yet.  By  the  way,  Max,  whenever 
you're  working  off  any  of  your  anti-feminine  diatribes, 
I  wish  you'd  make  a  mental  reservation  and  put  Mar- 
garet into  a  category  of  her  own.  I  don't  say  it  because 
she  is  my  sister,  but  Margaret  Treloar  is  not  an  ordinary 
woman.  Nobody  ever  forgets  her  who  has  once  seen 
her.  It  isn't  that  she  is  particularly  brilliant  in  a  glittering 
way,  but  somehow  she  shines  through  and  through  with 
light.  There  is  a,  sort  of  delightful  warmth  and  trans- 
parency about  her.  You  never  feel  chilly  or  lone- 
some where  she  is.  What  would  Morningside  Lodge 
be  without  her?  Just  so  much  brick  and  stone.  She 
makes  it  home.  Dear  old  Dad  thinks  he  runs  the  farm, 
but  he  no  more  runs  it  than  the  birds  in  the  orchard,  do. 
Like  them  he's  just  a  bit  of  vocal  decoration  —  a  lovely 
singing  ornament.  Margaret  does  it  all,  but  somehow 
contrives  not  to  seem  to  do  it,  and  so  Dad's  self-respect 


THE  TRELOARS  7 

never  moults  a  feather.  As  for  me,  whatever  good  there 
is  in  me,  I  owe  to  Margaret.  I  was  only  three  years  old 
when  mother  died.  I  can't  remember  her,  and  Catherine 
was  a  baby ;  and  Margaret  has  been  mother  and  sister  to 
both  of  us,  ever  since." 

"  Yes,  I  know  that.  Margaret  has  simply  sacrificed 
herself  to  all  of  you,  instead  of  blooming  into  the  splen- 
did creature  she  might  have  been,  if  you  had  not  all 
hung  on  to  her  like  dead  weights.  Her  unpardonable 
sin  is  not  having  shaken  you  all  off  to  carve  out  a  career 
for  herself." 

Dick  reddened  with  vexation,  and  after  a  short  pause 
said: 

"  Margaret  Treloar  happens  to  be  a  woman  for  whom 
duty  and  love  exist.  Self  is  not  the  first  consideration 
with  her." 

"  And  you  call  that  a  virtue  ?  "  exclaimed  Max.  "  You 
mean  by  love,  in  her  case,  the  home-making  faculty.  I 
hate  the  word  home  when  it  stands  for  a  fixed  center, 
a  paralysis  of  effort  and  feeling  beyond  its  pitiful  four 
walls.  It  is  the  climax  of  selfishness  and  egotism.  I 
grant,  there  is  no  dust  on  her  floors,  no  holes  in  her 
household  linen,  no  half-cooked  food  on  her  table,  and 
for  such  paltry  things,  for  such  a  poor  little  mess  of  pot- 
tage, she  has  bartered  her  birth-right." 

"  No !  "  shouted  Dick,  losing  his  patience.  "  Do  you 
mean  to  say  that  your  incarnate  will  is  to  lead  to  the 
dissolution  of  all  human  ties?  That  war,  not  peace; 
hate,  not  love,  are  to  rule  the  world?  A  fine  mess  of  a 
world  you'll  make  out  of  that  doctrine!  As  for  Mar- 
garet, God  bless  her!  she  has  been  more  than  the  cen- 
ter of  her  own  universe.  She  has  been  the  center  of  the 
household,  the  center  of  our  universe,  father's,  Ca- 
therine's, mine.  And  I'm  not  ashamed  of  getting  my 
light  and  warmth  from  her,  not  a  bit  of  it." 

"  Stuff  and  nonsense  —  second-hand  sentiment  bor- 
rowed from  Sunday-school  books !  What  would  you  do 
for  Margaret?" 


f 


8  THE  TRELOARS 

"  I'd  give  my  life  for  her." 

"  You  wouldn't  lay  aside  the  dearest  wish  of  your  heart 
for  her,  let  alone  your  life.  The  world  is  lousy  with  that 
kind  of  cant.  Neither  would  your  father.  Will  you  let 
me  tell  you  what  I  think  about  him?" 

"  You  may  say  what  you  like ;  you  can't  hurt  me  any 
more  than  you  have." 

"  Well,  if  I  hurt  you,  it's  for  your  own  good.  I 
haven't  come  back  to  the  States  to  be  mealy-mouthed. 
Your  father  is  an  interesting  man,  with  a  certain 
versatility,  curiosity,  and  power  of  assimilation  which 
he  mistakes  for  genius.  He  showed  the  right  kind  of 
grit  when  he  left  the  Church  and  refused  to  preach  what 
he  no  longer  believed.  But  his  emancipation  was  never 
complete.  His  spirituality  is  in  exactly  the  same  boat 
with  Parker's  materialism.  It  is  not  the  genuine  article. 
He  has  never  entirely  sloughed  his  Christian  faiths,  but 
wears  still  a  ragged  mantle  of  them  that  does  not  keep 
him  from  shivering.  That  is  why  he  keeps  up  that  in- 
cessant argument  with  Parker.  At  bottom  he  is  a  sen- 
sualist who  wants  all  the  good  things  of  this  world,  but 
he  doesn't  want  to  pay  the  price  for  them,  if  they  have 
to  be  paid  for.  That  is  why  he  doesn't  understand 
Parker's  clean  living,  to  use  the  conventional  phrase, 
along  with  the  absence  of  any  outside  prohibitory  check, 
such  as  an  accepted  Christian  creed.  Your  father  likes 
to  play  the  Colossus  with  one  foot  in  heaven  and  the 
other  on  earth ;  but  the  footing  is  rather  uneasy  and  in- 
secure, and  I  think  he  leans  heavier  towards  the  ground. 
He  baptizes  his  vices  with  beautiful  names,  and  then 
thinks  they  are  virtues " 

"  You  don't  do  that,  of  course,"  interrupted  Dick  sar- 
castically. 

"  No,  because  I  stand  beyond  virtue  and  vice.  The 
terms  mean  nothing  to  me.  They  are  purely  relative. 
But  they  still  mean  something  to  your  father,  and  he  has 
a  gift  at  nomenclature,  a  sort  of  linguistic  jugglery  with 
words  peculiar  to  his  age,  by  which  the  unreal  becomes 


THE  TRELOARS  9 

the  real,  and  vice-versa.  He  has  made  of  Margaret  the 
most  comfortable  of  soft  cushions  between  himself  and 
his  responsibilities,  but  he'd  fling  it  aside  for  a  softer,  if 
he  could  find  one.  As  for  Catherine,  she's  a  thoughtless 
girl  who  might  perhaps  learn  to  think  if  she  had  some 
responsibility  instead  of  leaning  up  against  the  rest  of 
you.  Ah !  There  is  Margaret  at  the  door  now,  looking 
for  us.  By  George !  she  hasn't  changed  a  bit.  You 
must  have  some  fountain  of  eternal  youth  about  the 
place,  Dick ;  you  must  show  it  to  me  before  I  leave." 

"  I  can't  do  that.  It  is  in  our  hearts,"  replied  Dick 
gravely. 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  young  men  were  walking  now  on  the  flower-bor- 
dered gravel  path  that  led  to  the  house.  A  broad,  round- 
arched  piazza,  stretched  across  the  front  of  the  house 
against  which  were  massed  brilliant-hued  geraniums  and 
tall,  graceful  ferns.  A  flight  of  stone  steps  led  to  the 
piazza,  and  the  slender  figure  clothed  in  white,  which 
the  young  men  had  seen  in  the  doorway,  moved  quickly 
forward,  and  stood  with  outstretched  hands  at  the  top 
of  the  steps. 

Such  bright,  sunny  welcome  there  was  in  the  eloquent 
gray  eyes  and  in  the  smile  that  lighted  up  the  delicate 
features,  that  even  Gietmann's  cynical  hardness  melted 
away  in  it,  and  he  returned  the  smile,  saying  with  some- 
thing like  a  jovial  ring  in  his  voice : 

"  You  look  good  to  me." 

"And  you  to  me,"  was  the  quick  reply,  as  the  young 
woman  clasped  the  out-stretched  hand.  "  Yet,  I  am  not 
quite  sure  that  I  would  have  known  you  at  first  sight, 
if  I  hadn't  been  expecting  you." 

"What?  I  am  not  so  changed  as  that,  am  I?  I 
should  have  known  you  in  the  dark." 

"  Well,  you  have  grown  much  stouter ;  then,  the  mous- 
tache and  pointed  beard  alter  you.  And  then,  too,  there's 


io  THE  TRELOARS 

something  about  your  expression  " —  She  hesitated  and 
blushed. 

"  Not  quite  so  sheepish,  eh  ?  Not  quite  so  moon- 
struck as  it  used  it  be,  is  that  it  ?  "  he  asked  with  a  laugh, 
and  as  she  turned  to  enter  the  house,  he  said : 

"  Do  you  remember  that  night  you  called  me  a  boy  ?  " 

Margaret's  face  burned  with  a  deeper  flush,  but  she 
said  nothing,  and  he  continued  in  a  lower  voice  meant 
for  her  ear  alone : 

"  I  went  away  from  you  that  night,  determined  not  to 
come  back,  until  I  was  a  man.  Well,  I've  come  back  a 
man,  Margaret." 

He  looked  straight  into  her  eyes  with  a  certain  self- 
possession  and  bold  admiration  before  which  her  own 
eyes  fell.  There  was  just  a  little  over-confidence  in  his 
manner,  as  if  he  had  made  it  a  point  of  honor  in  himself 
to  betray  no  weakness,  and  it  affected  her  disagreeably. 
She  preceded  the  young  men  into  the  house,  and  the 
cheerful  aspect  of  the  tastefully  furnished,  light  and  airy 
rooms  was  like  another  welcome. 

Seated  at  a  piano,  a  dark-haired,  dark-eyed  beautiful 
girl,  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  was  lightly  fingering 
the  keys  with  one  hand,  and  at  the  same  time  chatting 
with  a  fair-haired  girl,  Catherine  Treloar,  who  was  stand- 
ing near  her.  Seated  in  comfortable  arm-chairs,  near  a 
broad,  low  window  looking  out  on  the  garden,  two  elderly 
gentlemen  were  earnestly  talking  together. 

Philip  Treloar,  the  taller  and  slenderer  of  the  two, 
was  a  striking  looking  man  in  his  sixtieth  year,  with  gray 
hair  growing  thin  on  his  shapely  head,  a  bristling  gray 
moustache,  a  pale  complexion,  a  large  aquiline  nose, 
and  clear,  steel-blue  eyes.  His  companion,  Dr.  Joseph 
Parker,  was  a  stout  man  of  medium  height  who  had 
rather  the  air  of  a  prosperous  merchant  and  good  liver 
than  that  of  a  professional  man.  His  intelligent,  full, 
and  florid  face  was  lighted  up  by  prominent  dark  eyes 
that  had  been  short-sighted  in  his  youth,  but  with  age 
had  grown  into  a  fullness  of  vision  that  made  him  inde- 


THE  TRELOARS  n 

pendent  of  spectacles.     His  iron  gray  hair  was  closely 
cut,  and  his  face  smoothly  shaven. 

As  Margaret  entered  the  room,  both  men  rose  from 
their  chairs  and  advanced  to  welcome  the  new-comer. 

"  Delighted  to  see  you,  Max,"  said  Mr.  Treloar, 
heartily  shaking  hands  with  him.  "  But  I  would  have 
passed  you  on  the  street  without  knowing  you." 

"  I  hope  so,  Mr.  Treloar,"  said  Max.  "  It's  a  poor 
compliment  to  a  man  to  tell  him  he  hasn't  changed  in 
five  years." 

"  Or  a  woman  either,"  challenged  Margaret.  "  Here 
are  some  other  old  friends.  Dr.  Parker,  of  course,  you 
know,  but  here's  Dolly  who  also  has  changed  just  as 
much  as  you  have;  and  for  that  matter,  Catherine,  too. 
Come  here,  girls,  to  get  duly  presented  over  again.  Now, 
Max,  which  is  which  ? "  and  Margaret  drew  the  two  girls 
into  the  circle,  her  arm  about  the  waist  of  each. 

"  O,  it  isn't  any  trouble  to  tell  them  apart.  I  haven't 
forgotten  that  the  light  hair  and  blue  eyes  go  with  the 
Treloars,  and  the  dark  ones  with  the  Parkers.  I  am 
very  glad  to  see  you  again,  young  ladies  —  I  was  going 
to  say  girls,  but " 

"  O,  do  say,  girls,"  entreated  Catherine  with  a  laugh. 
"  It  is  so  very  dreadful  to  be  grown  up ;  there's  so  much 
more  expected  of  you,  and  nothing  more  in  you  to  meet 
the  expectations,  and  please,  don't  begin  with  Miss-'mg  us 
either.  Just  say  Cathie  and  Dolly  as  you  used  to.  We 
shall  feel  so  much  more  comfortable  if  you  do;  won't 
we,  Dolly?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  Dolly,  blushing  brightly,  for  the 
young  man's  eyes  were  expressing  a  lively  satisfaction 
in  her  fresh  young  beauty.  "  We  don't  feel  half  so 
grown-up  as  we  look." 

"  No,"  said  Dick.     "  They  are  both  of  them  just  as'~D 
green  as  ever  they  were,  and  are  proud  of  the  fact,  as 
you  see.     You're  the  o.nly  one  who  has  changed  and  feels 
it  a  distinction." 

"  But  not  so  much  after  all,"  said  Margaret.     "  I  be- 


12  THE  TRELOARS 

gin  to  find  him  again.  And,  Dick,  dear,  will  you  take 
him  to  the  spare  room?  I  dare  say  you  boys  (you  will 
always  be  boys  to  me,  even  when  you've  grown  a  beard) 
will  wish  to  wash  up  a  little  before  dinner  begins,  and 
it  is  quite  ready  whenever  you  are.  I  am  sure  the  long 
walk  has  given  you  both  a  good  appetite." 

As  the  young  men  left  the  room,  she  turned  to 
Catherine,  saying: 

"  Cathie,  please  bring  in  a  pitcher  of  fresh  water  from 
the  well.  The  boys  won't  be  long." 

"  And  isn't  there  anything  I  can  do  ?  "  asked  Dolly. 

"  Yes,  you  might  help  Cathie,"  answered  Margaret 
with  a  smile,  and  she  patted  the  young  girl's  shoulder  in 
an  affectionate  and  motherly  way.  She  was  very  fond 
of  Dolly.  Then  she  went  into  the  dining-room  to  give 
the  last  decorative  touches  to  the  table,  and  to  see  that 
everything  was  in  order. 

Dolly  and  Catherine  hastened  out,  arm  in  arm,  very 
glad  of  an  excuse  to  be  alone  for  a  moment  to  exchange 
opinions  about  the  guest. 

"  Isn't  he  original-looking  ?  "  Catherine  began,  as  soon 
as  they  were  out  of  the  house.  "  I  think  he  is  grand. 
That  fierce  moustache  and  pointed  beard  make  him  look 
awfully  interesting,  so  foreign-looking;  don't  you  think 
so?"  " 

"  I  don't  like  a  beard,"  objected  Dolly.  "  It  makes  a 
man  look  so  old,  and  did  you  notice  the  back  of  his 
hands  and  his  wrists?  They're  all  covered  with  thick, 
black  hair.  Ugh!  he  reminds  me  of  a  bear." 

"  I  don't  mind  that.  That's  a  sign  of  strength  they 
say."  Then  she  paused,  bit  her  lip,  looked  critically  at 
Dolly,  as  if  she  were  determining  whether  or  not  it  would 
be  safe  to  trust  her  with  a  secret,  and  finally  burst  out 
with: 

"  I've  half  a  notion  to  tell  you  something.  I  wonder 
if  you  could  keep  a  secret." 

"Of  course,  I  could.  Do  you  think  I  am  a  silly 
talker?" 


THE  TRELOARS  13 

"  No,  but  this  particular  secret  isn't  exactly  mine ;  so 
I  feel  some  compunction  of  conscience  about  telling  it." 

"  Well,  then  you  oughtn't  to  tell  it  —  especially  if  you 
think  you  can't  trust  me,"  answered  Dolly  with  an  air 
of  dignified  resignation. 

"  But  I  think  I  can  if  you  promise.  Now,  Dolly,  on 
your  honor  you'll  never  breathe  a  word  of  what  I  am 
going  to  tell  you,  to  a  living  soul !  " 

"  Of  course,  I  won't,  Catherine,  if  you  don't  want  me 
to." 

"  Well,  I  don't  want  you  to ;  that's  sure.  Now  I  am 
going  to  set  you  to  guessing,  first.  Say,  Dolly,  did 
you  ever  suspect  that  Max  Gietmann  was  in  love  with 
somebody  ? " 

Dolly  deliberated  a  moment,  and  then  replied :  "  No, 
I  don't  think  I  ever  did.  The  truth  is,  I  don't  remember 
much  about  him,  except  that  he  was  very  fond  of  Dick 
and  used  to  come  home  from  college  with  him  and  stay 
over  the  week-end  at  your  house." 

"Yes,  that's  so.  But,  Dolly,  it  wasn't  Dick  that  was 
the  attraction.  It  was  Margaret." 

"  Margaret  ?  "  repeated  Dolly  in  surprise. 

"Yes,  Margaret,"  reiterated  Catherine  triumphantly. 
"  I  never  shall  forget  the  day  I  found  it  out.  I  was  just 
as  surprised  as  you  are.  It  was  right  here,  close  to  this 
arbor,"  and  Catherine  paused  before  a  clump  of  bushes 
near  an  arbor  covered  over  with  honeysuckle.  "  I  had 
been  playing  around  by  the  well  with  a  big  Maltese  cat, 
and  had  just  run  up  to  this  clump  of  bushes,  when  I  sud- 
denly heard  voices  in  the  arbor.  I  crept  up  and  peeped 
through  the  vines;  and  there  were  Max  and  Margaret, 
both  of  them  crying.  Margaret  seemed  to  be  saying 
something  to  pacify  him.  She  had  put  her  hand  on  his 
arm,  and  he  jerked  it  away  angrily,  saying:  '  I  am  not 
a  boy ;  I  am  not  your  brother.  I  don't  want  the  sort  of 
love  you  give  to  him.'  He  looked  so  angry  and  ex- 
cited and  spoke  so  roughly  that  I  got  frightened  and 
ran  away  to  the  house,  where  Margaret  was  not  long  in 


I4  THE  TRELOARS 

coming.  I  saw  how  red  her  eyes  were,  but  I  never  asked 
her  any  questions,  of  course.  Max  had  gone,  and  he 
never  came  back  again  until  to-day  —  never  even  wrote 
us  a  line." 

"  And  did  you  never  know  what  had  become  of  him  ?  " 

"  Yes,  we  heard  that  his  father  had  died,  leaving  him 
a  considerable  amount  of  money.  I  think  it  was  in  a 
German  paper  that  somebody  gave  Dick,  that  we  found 
it  out,  but  I  am  not  sure,  now.  You  know  he  had  come 
out  to  America  when  he  was  only  about  fifteen  or  sixteen, 
after  a.  violent  quarrel  with  his  people.  His  father  had 
struck  him,  I  think.  He  was  a  precocious  fellow  and 
picked  up  English  in  a  little  while,  came  out  here  and 
worked  his  way  into  the  university  where  he  met  Dick. 
They  took  a  fancy  to  each  other,  and  Dick  used  to  bring 
him  out  on  Friday  nights  to  stay  over  Sunday.  You 
know  Margaret  is  just  as  innocent  as  a  baby.  She 
doesn't  know  men  at  all,  and  she  used  to  treat  Max  just  as 
sweetly  as  she  did  Dick.  Well,  you  see  what  happened. 
Of  course  she  is  a  good  deal  older  than  he." 

"  She  doesn't  look  any  older,"  said  Dolly.  "  Do  you 
suppose  that  he  has  come,  back  for  her,  and  that  Mar- 
garet will  marryvhim?" 

"  O,  no !  no !  There  isn't  the  slightest  danger  of  that. 
Margaret  will  never  marry  as  long  as  father  lives,  or 
Dick  needs  her.  She  thinks  too  much  of  them.  I  some- 
times wonder  what  she  would  do,  if  anything  happened 
to  either  of  them.  There  is  something  almost  touching 
to  me  in  her  devotion.  It  is  such  an  old-fashioned  virtue 
now,  you  know." 

"  Well,  whether  it  is  an  old  fashion  or  a  new  fashion, 
it  seems  a  good  fashion  to  me,  but  it  doesn't  mean  that 
she  couldn't  love  somebody  else." 

"  In  a  deeper  way  ?  " 

"  In  a  different  way." 

"  So  that  it  would  be  possible  for  her  to  leave  us  ?  " 

"Yes,  of  course." 

"  Then  you  don't  know  Margaret.     Margaret  Treloar 


THE  TRELOARS  15 

could  never  love  anybody  so  much  that  she  could  give 
up  father  and  Dick  for  him.  Now  I  love  father,  you 
know  I  do,  and  I  love  Dick  —  but — "  here  Catherine 
hesitated,  giggled,  tossed  her  head  like  a  young  colt, 
and  finally  said  — "  I've  no  intention  of  having  Miss 
Treloar  carved  on  my  tombstone ;  and  you  ?  "  but  before 
she  could  learn  what  Dolly's  intentions  with  regard  to 
epitaphs  might  be,  Margaret's  voice  was  calling  her  to 
make  haste  with  the  water,  and  the  two  girls  hurried  to 
the  well,  filled  the  pitcher  and  went  back  to  the  house 
without  further  delay. 

In  the  meantime,  Max  and  Dick  had  finished  their 
hasty  toilet  and  were  waiting  to  be  called  to  dinner,  with 
an  appetite  that  promised  to  do  ample  justice  to  it. 

Margaret  was  an  excellent  cook,  and  never  entrusted 
her  dinners  entirely  to  Betty,  the  maid  of  all  work,  who 
was  remarkable,  rather  for  fidelity,  than  for  originality 
and  skill.  It  was  owing  to  this  fidelity  that  she  shared 
Margaret's  anxiety  that  the  dinner  should  be  particularly 
savory  to-day,  and  was  as  pleased  as  a  child,  when  the 
roast-beef  turned  out  to  be  unusually  juicy  and  tender, 
and  the  peas  had  retained  their  delicate  flavor  and  bright 
green  color.  She  had  shared,  too,  Margaret's  pleasure 
in  the  prospect  of  seeing  Max  Gietmann,  whose  former 
visits  she  remembered  with  satisfaction,  and  she  had  a 
strange  little  sinking  at  heart  when  he  had  not  asked  after 
her,  nor  come  into  the  kitchen  to  say,  as  it  had  been  his 
custom,  formerly :  "  How  do  you  do,  Betty  ?  Got  any- 
thing good  to  eat  ? "  Well,  no  matter,  he  would  say 
something  to  her  when  she  went  into  the  dining-room 
to  wait  on  the  table.  But  she  might  not  have  existed  at 
all  for  any  notice  he  took  of  her,  as  he  helped  himself 
from  the  dishes  she  passed.  Her  thin,  wrinkled  hands 
trembled  a  little.  She  would  have  been  so  proud  and 
happy,  if  he  had  given  her  only  a  glance  of  recognition ; 
but  he  was  so  much  absorbed  in  his  conversation,  so  eager 
to  astonish  or  charm  by  the  communication  of  his  ideas 
that  he  was  really  unconscious  of  her  presence. 


16  THE  TRELOARS 

"  The  trouble  with  you  Americans,"  he  was  saying, 
"  is  that  your  real  thoughts  and  your  practices  are  ab- 
solutely at  variance  with  your  pretensions.  You  are  the 
most  materialistic  nation  in  the  world;  and,  mark  me,  I 
do  not  say  that  to  your  discredit,  but  to  your  credit ;  but 
you  are  ashamed  of  the  fact,  and  you  try  to  cover  it  up 
with  all  sorts  of  ridiculous  messes.  You  have  invented 
a  religion  that  denies  the  existence  of  matter  and  cele- 
brates the  invention  in  the  costliest  marble  and  granite. 
You  have  invented  another  religion  of  disembodied  spir- 
its that  rap  and  tap  and  squeak  and  gibber  in  the  most 
material  way.  In  short,  while  you  live  in  matter  and 
think  of  matter  all  your  waking  hours,  you  won't  give  up 
the  cant  of  talking  spiritually,  as  if  there  were  some 
particularly  aristocratic  quality  in  it  that  could  give  you 
distinction." 

Mr.  Treloar  pounded  the  table  with  the  handle  of  his 
fork  crying :  "  Hear !  Hear !  "  and  laughing  immoder- 
ately, looked  at  Dr.  Parker  in  triumph.  "  That  is 
what  I  call  being  perfectly  logical,"  he  cried.  "  The 
soul  is  either  immortal  or  it  isn't.  I  happen  to  think  it 
is ;  but  if  I  didn't  believe  it,  I  should  say  that  life  is  a 
glorious  farce  and  that  there  is  no  better  use  for  it  than  to 
eat,  drink  and  be  merry." 

"  That  is  perfectly  childish,"  exclaimed  Dr.  Parker. 
"  It  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  because  I  can't  occupy 
my  house  forever,  it  doesn't  make  any  difference  what 
sort  of  house  it  is.  Its  roof  may  let  in  the  wind  and 
rain,  its  floors  may  rot  and  sink  to  the  ground  and  its 
defective  sewerage  poison  the  air.  What  difference  does 
it  make?  I  can't  have  an  eternal  hold  on  it." 

"  O,  no,  you're  all  wrong  there,  Joe.  Your  good  house 
is  part  of  the  game  of  life.  You  are  not  going  to  neglect 
anything  material;  for  it  is  the  material  only  that  has 
any  reality  to  you.  And  if  you  are  a  logical  materialist 
you  want  more  houses  and  better  houses  and  more  auto- 
mobiles and  better  and  faster  ones;  and  more  of  every- 
thing that  can  make  you  forget  what  a  miserable  puny 


THE  TRELOARS  17 

creature  you  really  are  —  of  no  more  account  in  the 
great  scheme  of  things  than  the  fly  that  buzzes  on  your 
window-pane." 

"  I  don't  agree  with  you,  Phil.  Nature  has  a  way  of 
her  own  of  refuting  these  arguments  of  yours  by  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  which  she  has  implanted  in 
all  her  creatures ;  and  whatever  you  may  say  about  it,  it  is 
a  part  of  her  scheme  of  things,  as  you  call  it,  that 
along  with  intelligence  shall  go  as  its  preservative,  an  in- 
stinctive sense  of  its  relation  to  its  kind,  formulated  in 
man  as  a  sense  of  duty,  of  responsibility,  and  it  is  only 
when  you  insist  upon  dissecting  and  analyzing  this  sense 
to  find  it  rooted  in  egotism  that  you  disturb  and  destroy 
it.  I  have  always  remembered  with  peculiar  pleasure  the 
Russian  peasant's  answer  to  Tolstoi's  question :  '  What 
would  you  do,  if  you  knew  you  were  going  to  die  to- 
morrow ? '  '  I  should  keep  on  plowing.'  There's  the 
whole  thing  in  a  nut-shell.  Of  course,  you  can  corrupt 
that  peasant.  You  can  undermine  all  his  simple  whole- 
some instincts  (of  the  earth,  earthy  if  you  will,)  by  all 
the  vices  of  your  cultured  intellect,  trained  to  analyze  and 
destroy,  but  that  does  not  affect  the  argument.  No 
healthy  mind  ever  found  life  unendurable,  or  only  fit  to 
be  squandered  because  of  its  brevity." 

"  I  agree  with  you,  Doctor,"  said  Max,  "  but  that  ques- 
tion of  immortality  which  troubles  the  older  generation 
that  has  received  it  as  a  tradition,  does  not  in  the  least 
trouble  the  younger  one.  What  interests  us  is  not  yes- 
terday nor  to-morrow,  but  right  now.  We  have  not  been 
fed  on  the  things  that  nourish  you.  Your  ideals  are  not 
ours.  We  feel  the  narrowness  and  insufficiency,  as  well 
as  the  falseness  of  the  ideas  that  make  up  your  intellectual 
life.  We  can't  belong  to  any  country.  We  belong  to 
the  world.  We  are  cosmopolitans." 

"  You  mean  mongrels,  don't  you  ? "  interrupted  Tre- 
loar  with  an  amused  twinkle  in  his  eye.  He  was  enjoy- 
ing himself  hugely  assisting  at  his  old  friend's  discom- 
fiture. "  You  mean  that  your  intellectual  attitude  is 


i8  THE  TRELOARS 

the  result  of  the  mingling  of  the  ideas  and  emotions  of 
all  races  and  all  ages,  for  there  is  nothing  original  in  it. 
You  mean  that  you  have  lost  the  distinction  of  a  type  — 
of  a  race,  whose  blood  runs  true  to  the  ancestral  line." 

"If  you  like  to  put  it  that  way  —  yes,  for  it  means 
that  we  feel  nothing  alien  to  us,  that  is  alive  and  grow- 
ing. The  only  thing  we  dread  is  fixity,  parasitism.  We 
want  to  keep  on  moving:  we  want  to  be  self-sustaining, 
to  stand  on  our  own  feet,  instead  of  leaning  on  somebody. 
You  feel  yourselves  rooted  in  the  past.  Dick  and  I  were 
discussing  that  point  coming  out  here.  Then,  too,  we 
believe  in  the  domination  of  the  strong,  not  the  weak. 
The  perfection  of  a  machine  is  that  it  can't  think,  can't 
reason  against  the  man  that  runs  it,  but  is  absolutely 
passive  and  obedient  to  him.  The  salvation  of  society 
means  the  strong  man  at  the  helm  and  the  little  man  under 
him  as  machine.  That  is  why  your  democracies  are  fail- 
ures. The  strength  of  the  nation  is  dissipated  in  count- 
less feeble  wills.  The  little  man  is  on  top;  the  big  man 
underneath,  in  danger  of  being  crushed  by  the  wheels. 
That  is  why  democracies  make  for  peace  and  the  steady 
accumulation  of  material  enjoyments  which  are  the  little 
man's  hope  of  heaven  to-day,  just  as  they  were  his  hope 
when  he  clamored  for  bread  and  circuses  under  the 
Roman  eagle.  That  is  why  the  strongest  government  in 
the  world  to-day  is  our  Germany.  We  have  the  strong 
man  at  the  helm.  Now,  please  don't  confound  my  idea  of 
strength  with  your  familiar  ideas  of  goodness,  benevo- 
lence, intelligence.  As  ordinarily  accepted,  these  words 
are  only  synonyms  for  weakness.  I  mean  by  strength 
an  obstinate,  inflexible  will,  the  unfaltering  persuasion 
that  the  will  of  the  universe  is  incarnate  in  you  —  colossal 
vanity,  if  you  like  —  I  have  no  quarrel  with  words. 
Take,  for  instance,  our  Kaiser's  God.  He  is  no  weak- 
kneed  old  man.  No,  he  is  the  god  of  battles  and  storms, 
and " 

"  Made  in  Germany,"  laughed  Treloar  again. 

"  Yes,  made  in   Germany,   to  serve   Germany,"   was 


THE  TRELOARS  19 

Max's  prompt  reply.  "  Where  a  great  many  other  good 
things  are  made,  in  spite  of  the  slushy  socialism  that  is 
made  there,  too,  by  the  under  man  who  aspires  in  his 
turn  to  control  the  machine.  But  what  I  am  getting  at 
is  this  :  We  of  the  younger  generation  mean  by  strength, 
non-conformity,  absolute  personal  independence,  individ- 
ual autocracy,  the  right  to  be  your  own  standard  in  every- 
thing, instead  of  meekly  accepting  a  ready-made  one  from 
somebody  else.  And  that  independence  applies  to  every- 
thing, ethics,  art,  literature,  music.  If  your  classics  in 
art  or  literature  speak  to  me  in  a  language  I  can't  under- 
stand, I  have  the  right  to  say  so." 

"  Certainly,"  interposed  Dick  with  a  good  deal  of 
warmth ;  "  but  you  haven't  the  right  to  say  that  nobody 
else  understands  them  and  that  they  aren't  worth  under- 
standing. You  have  only  the  right  to  advertise  your 
limitations  and  your  ignorance,  if  it  is  your  pleasure  to  do 
so." 

Here  Catherine,  who  had  been  listening  with  great 
eagerness  to  the  discussion,  felt  that  a  good  opportunity 
had  arrived  to  let  Max  know  that  he  had,  at  least,  one 
listener  who  was  not  hopelessly  behind  the  times  but 
could  appreciate  his  advanced  ideas,  so  she  leaned  over 
the  table  and  said  with  great  earnestness :  "  I  think 
that  was  a  very  unnecessary  remark,  Dick.  I  am  quite 
sure  that  Max  is  right.  I  know  that  /  am  not  ignorant 
of  the  classics,  in  English,  at  any  rate,  and  they  have 
never  appealed  to  me,  nor  to  the  great  majority  of  us 
young  people  in  college.  We  all  think  them  an  insuffer- 
able bore,  and  now  that  we  have  struck  the  course  in 
the  modern  novel,  Maupassant,  Shaw,  and  other  grand, 
thrilling  writers,  we  call  it  having  gone  from  the  drys 
to  the  wets.  We've  struck  something  full  of  juice 
and — "  a  roar  of  laughter  from  Mr.  Treloar  stopped 
Catherine  in  her  na'ive  confession. 

"  Out  of  the  mouths  of  babes  and  sucklings,"  he 
shouted,  rising  to  his  feet  as  dinner  was  over.  "  Now, 
let  us  adjourn  to  the  living-room,  and,  Catherine,  be  kind 


20  THE  TRELOARS 

enough  to  reserve  your  dissertations  on  juicy  literature 
for  another  time." 

"  There !  You  see  how  it  is,"  muttered  Catherine  to 
Max,  as  she  followed  him  closely  into  the  next  room. 
"  That's  the  way  we  young  folks  always  get  squelched. 
We  are  never  supposed  to  have  an  opinion  that  hasn't 
been  approved  of,  and  catalogued.  I  don't  care,  that 
doesn't  prevent  us  from  having  'em.  How  I  do  love 
originality,  don't  you  ?  " 

Max  felt  the  absurdity  of  her  question  and  said  noth- 
ing, but  he  smiled  in  a  way  which  Catherine  interpreted 
as  a  perfect  agreement  between  them. 

As  for  Margaret,  her  delicate  face  was  crimson  with 
shame,  and  when  the  little  company  was  seated  again, 
she  mustered  up  courage  to  say :  "  Now,  please,  father, 
do  let  us  have  Max  among  us  for  the  rest  of  the  evening 
as  Max,  and  not  as  a  philosopher.  You  know  that  at  the 
end  of  these  discussions,  we  all  come  out  just  where  we 
went  in ;  don't  we,  Doctor  ?  " 

Dr.  Parker,  seeing  Margaret's  discomfort,  rallied  to 
her  support  and  adroitly  turned  the  conversation  to  sub- 
jects of  general  interest,  and  persistently  maintained  it  in 
a  light  and  jovial  strain  for  the  rest  of  the  evening.  But 
even  under  these  conditions,  Margaret  did  not  quite  re- 
gain her  wonted  calmness,  and  when  at  half  past  ten 
o'clock,  Max  rose  to  take  leave,  she  said  eagerly: 

"  O,  no !  You  aren't  going  back  to  the  city  at  this  late 
hour.  Do  stay  all  night,  as  you  used  to  do;  your  room 
is  just  as  you  left  it." 

"  Thank  you,"  he  answered.  "  You  are  very  kind,  but 
I  must  really  go  back.  I  have  an  early  engagement  in 
the  morning." 

"Then  Betty  will  call  you  early,  and  give  you  your 
breakfast  at  any  time  you  wish  it." 

"  Really,  you  are  too  good,  but  I  am  not  going  to  dis- 
turb Betty,  or  anybody  else.  I  really  can't  stay.  I  have 
enjoyed  seeing  you  all  immensely,  and  I  am  coming  out 
again,  Mr.  Treloar,  to  finish  that  discussion  with  you." 


THE  TRELOARS  21 

He  extended  his  hand  to  his  host,  who  shook  it  cor- 
dially, as  he  answered: 

"  That's  right,  Max,  do  come  out  again.  I  like  your 
courage.  I  like  the  way  you  follow  out  your  arguments 
to  their  logical  conclusion.  I  should  have  settled  with 
the  doctor  long  ago,  if  he  had  been  half  as  consequen- 
tial." 

Treloar  had  a  habit  of  pulling  his  nose,  as  some  men 
have  of  pulling  their  moustaches,  and  he  finished  this 
sentence  with  the  familiar  gesture  and  a  broad  smile,  as 
he  turned  to  his  old  friend,  who  replied: 

"  That  is  one  of  your  multifarious  illusions,  Phil,  but 
you  are  welcome  to  it,"  Then,  turning  to  his  daughter, 
he  said :  "  Come,  Dolly,  get  your  hat.  We  must  be 
going  home,  too.  We  can  walk  as  far  as  the  road  with 
Max." 

"  Shan't  I  hitch  up  and  drive  you  back,  Max  ?  "  said 
Dick.  "  It  won't  take  me  long  to  get  the  horses  round." 

"  No,  don't  do  that,  please.  I  want  the  walk.  I  need 
the  exercise." 

"  Well,  then,  I'll  walk  out  to  the  gate  with  you,  too." 

"  Are  you  intending  to  settle  in  America,  or  are  you 
going  back  to  Germany?"  asked  the  doctor  of  Max,  as 
they  walked  up  the  hill  together,  Dick  and  Dolly  follow- 
ing them. 

"  I  think  I  shall  stay  here ;  though  I  am  not  pinning 
myself  down  to  any  set  program.  Dick  tells  me  he  is 
going  into  journalism.  I  think  I'd  like  that  myself,  only, 
of  course,  I  should  want  to  own  my  own  journal,  so  that 
I  could  say  what  I  please,  and  as  much  or  little  as  I 
please." 

"  You  would  like  to  begin  disseminating  your  ideas,  I 
suppose." 

"Why  not?" 

"  No  reason  in  the  world  why  not,  if  you  think  the 
world  of  sufficient  importance  to  be  instructed." 

Max  was  silent  a  moment.  Then  he  laughed  as  he 
answered :  "  That's  rather  a  neat  way  of  telling  me 


22  THE  TRELOARS 

that  I  think  a  good  deal  of  myself  and  very  little  of  the 
world.  But  the  world  ought  to  have  a  few  hard  knocks 
—  don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  so  sure,"  answered  the  doctor.  "  I  think  the 
iconoclast  has  done  about  all  the  work  that  is  necessary, 
for  the  present,  and  that  the  architect  should  be  stepping 
to  the  front  now.  We  want  the  master  builder  who  will 
take  these  wrecked  faiths  of  ours,  and  broken  fragments 
of  noble  dreams  and  build  some  solid  shelter  for  us  when 
the  storms  are  on." 

"  That  wouldn't  do  any  good.  The  building  would 
soon  grow  shaky  again.  What  we  need  to  do,  is  to  learn 
to  live  out  doors,  and  defy  the  storms." 

"  Like  the  cave-man  and  the  bush  man." 

"They  were  freer  than  we." 

"  That  is  questionable.  Well,  we  must  say  good  night 
to  you  now.  Come  over  and  see  us  when  you  are  out 
this  way  again." 

"  Father,  what  did  you  invite  him  for  ? "  asked  Dolly 
when  she  and  her  father  were  alone.  "  I  think  he's  per- 
fectly horrid,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  No,  I  think  he  is  comical.  I  think  he  is  very  young 
for  his  age.  He  has  probably  suffered  some  disappoint- 
ment to  his  self  love  and  wants  to  avenge  his  hurt  on 
the  world  in  much  the  same  spirit  that  a  child  turns  and 
kicks  the  chair  against  which  it  has  stubbed  its  toe.  It 
is  the  common  explanation  of  many  misanthropies." 

Dolly  drew  closer  to  her  father  and  took  his  arm. 
She  felt  the  greatest  temptation  to  repeat  to  him  what 
Catherine  had  told  her,  but  faithful  to  her  promise,  she 
resisted  the  impulse  and  contented  herself  with  asking 
demurely : 

"  Do  you  think  it  might  be  a  disappointment  in  love  ?  " 

"  Possibly,  or  some  checked  ambition ;  but  no  mat- 
ter what  it  is,  if  he  has  good  stuff  in  him,  he  will  recover. 
If  he  hasn't,  he'll  turn  reformer,  agitator,  or  general 
tooth-gnasher  and  wrecker." 

"  I  wish  he  had  confined  his  agitations  and  gnashings 


THE  TRELOARS  23 

to  Germany.  I  don't  think  he  is  good  company  for  Dick, 
do  you  ?  " 

"  That  depends  upon  Dick." 

"  In  what  way,  father  ?  " 

"  Well,  if  a  man  is  in  good  physical  condition,  he  may 
expose  himself  to  contagion  with  little  danger,  but  if  he 
is  feeble,  with  a  tendency  to  catch  things,  he  runs  a  great 
risk  of  being  infected.  It  is  the  same  way  with  a  man's 
morals.  If  he  has  sound  instincts,  if  nature  built  him 
clean  all  the  way  through,  he  can  keep  clean  and  sound, 
no  matter  what  evil  surrounds  him;  but  if  he  has  a  low, 
itching  curiosity  and  a  hankering  after  what  is  generally 
forbidden  just  because  it  is  forbidden  —  he  runs  a  great 
risk." 

"  Then  I  think  Dick  is  quite  safe,  don't  you,  father?" 

"  I  think  so.  I'm  very  fond  of  Dick.  What  makes 
you  worry  about  him,  Dolly  ?  " 

"  I  am  not  worrying  about  him,  but  I  don't  like  that 
Max.  I  think  he's  horrid!"  and  having  finished  where 
she  began,  Dolly  challenged  her  father  to  a  race  as  far  as 
the  next  bend  in  the  road,  and  darted  off  like  a  young 
deer,  seeming  scarcely  to  touch  the  ground  with  her  light 
feet,  and  at  the  goal  of  the  race,  she  stood  laughing  and 
panting  till  her  father  came  up  —  a  good  deal  blown 
himself,  though  he  had  given  up  running  after  a  short 
trial. 

"  There ! "  she  cried,  catching  hold  of  his  arm  again. 
"  I  knew  I  should  beat  you,  Daddy.  You  make  your- 
self top-heavy  with  that  blundering  old  philosophy.  I 
think  it  is  so  good  for  you  to  run  some  of  it  out  of  you. 
Don't  you  feel  lighter,  already?  Seriously,  you  know,  I 
don't  mind  your  discussions  with  Mr.  Treloar.  I've 
heard  them  so  often  that  I  should  miss  them  as  I  would 
Prince's  barking,  or  the  pigeon's  cooing  in  the  back-yard. 
They've  really  come  to  seem  home-like,  and  to  belong 
naturally  to  a  certain  stage  of  life;  but  to  be  young  and 
choked  up  with  a  philosophy  like  that  Max!  Young, 
young!  young!"  O  the  scorn  in  Dolly's  voice  as  she 


24  THE  TRELOARS 

repeated  this  word !     "  You  said  he  was  young.     Why  he 
is  a  million  years  older  than  you.     He  is  as  old  as  mud !  " 


CHAPTER  III 

IN  the  meantime,  the  young  gentleman,  "  old  as  mud," 
was  hastily  making  his  way  back  to  Berkeley  in  a  frame 
of  mind  quite  as  unamiable  as  Dolly's.  A  heavy  fog 
had  rolled  down  from  the  hills,  but  he  felt  nothing  of 
its  chill  dampness,  nor  would  his  eyes  have  served  him 
any  better,  had  it  been  broad  day-light.  He  was  wholly 
absorbed  for  the  time  being  with  an  inner  vision  that 
made  him  unconscious  of  the  outer  world. 

Max  Gietmann  was  a  native  of  Strasburg.  His 
father,  an  irascible  and  moody  man,  unhappily  married  to 
a  woman  beneath  him  in  station  and  intelligence,  had 
never  treated  him  with  the  affection  and  consideration  of 
a  parent,  and  in  consequence  of  a  violent  quarrel  between 
the  two,  he  had  run  away  to  America.  His  experiences 
in  the  new  country  had  been  painful  and  humiliating. 
He  had  known  all  the  mean  shifts  and  mortifications  of 
poverty.  He  had  served  hard  task-masters,  and  had  suf- 
fered in  silence  the  stinging  consciousness  of  his  superior- 
ity to  them.  He  had  stolen  time  from  his  sleep  to  satisfy 
his  hungry  intellect.  He  resolved  to  prepare  himself  for 
a  university  by  attendance  at  night  schools  and  at  public 
lectures,  and  finally  reaching  Berkeley,  California,  found 
employment  sufficiently  remunerative  to  enable  him  to 
save  enough  to  pay  his  expenses  for  a  year  at  the  uni- 
versity. 

Chance  threw  him  into  the  same  class  with  Richard 
Treloar  who  was  struck  by  the  maturity  and  originality 
of  his  opinions,  whenever  he  was  called  upon  to  give 
them  in  class,  and  he  sought  him  out.  The  two  young 
men,  attracted  to  each  other  by  the  fascination  of  utter 
contrast,  became  warm  friends.  Dick  began  to  talk 
about  his  brilliant  young  friend  at  home,  and  asked  Mar- 
garet, if  he  might  not  invite  him  to  their  home. 


THE  TRELOARS  25 

Margaret  Treloar  belonged  to  that  type  of  woman- 
hood, by  no  means  scantily  represented,  in  whom  the 
mother  instinct  is  predominant  in  its  purest  form  of 
tender  devotion  and  vivid  impersonal  interest.  She  had 
a  peculiar  gift  of  putting  herself  in  your  place,  or  rather 
of  effacing  herself  so  completely  that  you  felt  no  sense 
of  strangeness  in  her  presence,  but  rather  that  you  had 
doubled  yourself,  and  that  whatever  deeply  interested 
you,  would  interest  her,  for  the  very  reason  that  it  was 
your  interest,  not  hers ;  and  so  you  revealed  yourself  to 
her,  as  you  had  never  done  to  any  one  before.  You 
dropped  all  the  little  masks  and  half-truths  which  society 
forces  you  to  put  on  in  self-defense.  You  bared  your 
soul  to  her,  and  were  neither  ashamed  nor  afraid;  for 
you  felt  her  nature  so  large  and  sincere  that  there  was 
room  in  it  for  pardon,  if  you  wounded  it,  and  for  charity 
if  you  offended  it. 

But  she  had  utterly,  fatally  misunderstood  Max.  She 
had  never  even  remotely  dreamed  that  her  sweet  motherly 
affection  for  him  had  awakened  in  him  a  devouring  pas- 
sion; and  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two 
suffered  the  keener  mortification,  in  their  hour  of  disillu- 
sionment. That  hour  burned  itself  indelibly  into  the 
memory  of  each  of  them,  and  left  a  wound  that,  after 
five  years,  still  throbbed  painfully. 

Max  recalled  it  now,  as  he  hastened  along  the  lonely 
Tunnel  Road  towards  Berkeley.  His  lips  quivered  with 
suppressed  emotion,  and  by  the  pain  he  felt,  he  knew 
that  he  had  not  yet  entirely  freed  himself  from  the  old 
domination.  He  hated  himself  for  it,  as  if  he  had  been 
guilty  of  a  shameful  weakness.  He  had  come  back  so 
sure  of  himself,  so  strengthened  by  the  hate  and  scorn  of 
sentimentality,  and  by  all  the  promptings  of  a  powerful 
egotism,  so  sure,  too,  that  he  should  find  her  changed,  as 
he  himself  had  changed  —  grown  older,  made  common  by 
the  fading  of  his  own  bright  dreams  of  her,  that  he  was 
shocked  and  stunned  to  find  her  as  he  had  left  her,  and 
to  feel  the  buried  self  within  him  awake  and  answer  to 


26  THE  TRELOARS 

her  touch,  as  in  the  old  days  when  she  was  all  the  world 
to  him.  His  feelings  were  so  strong  that  he  had  no  con- 
sciousness of  the  passing  of  time,  and  it  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  been  but  a  few  minutes  striding  along  the 
lonely  road,  when  he  reached  a  street  car  terminus.  He 
boarded  the  car  for  Oakland,  and  arrived  at  the  ferry 
landing  just  in  time  to  take  the  last  boat  crossing  the  bay 
for  San  Francisco.  He  hastened  to  the  upper  deck  and 
let  the  fresh  sea  breeze  blow  across  his  hot  face.  Al- 
though the  hour  was  late,  the  boat  carried  a  considerable 
number  of  passengers,  of  whom  the  most  noticeable  was  a 
company  of  actors,  returning  to  the  city  from  a  perform- 
ance in  Oakland.  They  were  a  tired  and  yawning  set, 
not  at  all  solicitous  about  keeping  up  the  illusions  of  the 
dramatic  world,  and  Max  had  passed  them  by  without 
glancing  either  to  the  right  or  left.  He  stood  now  at  the 
prow  of  the  boat,  straining  his  eyes  into  the  darkness,  his 
hat  off,  the  night  air  blowing  through  his  heavy  hair.  He 
was  very  unhappy.  The  thought  crossed  his  mind: 
"  How  easy  it  would  be  to  throw  one's  self  into  that  dark 
rolling  flood,  to  shiver,  to  gasp,  to  struggle  involuntarily, 
and  then  —  eternal  rest." 

"Mr.  Gietmann!" 

He  started  violently,  as  if  suddenly  aroused  from  a 
slumber. 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.     I  did  not  mean  to  startle  you." 

He  turned  quickly  and  confronted  a  slender,  well- 
dressed  woman  who  was  smiling  at  him  as  if  he  were  a 
well-remembered  friend;  but  as  he  made  no  sign  of 
recognition,  and  gave  no  indication  of  pleasure  at  the 
greeting,  she  went  on: 

"  You  do  not  know  me  ?  " 

"  No.     I  do  not  know  you,"  he  answered  impatiently. 

"  Will  you  do  me  the  favor  of  carrying  your  memory 
back  five  years  to  the  park  at  Cherbourg,  France  ?  " 

Her  voice  was  very  sweet  and  insinuating,  and  she 
smiled,  as  she  looked  steadily  at  him. 

A  puzzled  expression  passed  over  his  face  as  he  re- 
peated: "The  park?  Cherbourg,  France?" 


THE  TRELOARS  27 

"Yes  — and  Sophy  Walker." 

His  face  cleared  instantly. 

"  O,  yes,  I  remember  now.  The  young  woman  in 
trouble,  whose  husband  had  left  her;  but  —  you're  not 
that  young  woman.  I  don't  remember  her  looking  like 
you." 

The  young  woman  laughed  softly,  as  she  answered : 

"  No,  I  don't  think  she  did.  I  think  I  have  improved 
on  her;  for  I  am  the  young  woman.  Wouldn't  you  like 
to  hear  how  the  butterfly  came  out  of  the  chrysalis?  " 

"  Yes.     I  think  that  would  be  interesting." 

"  But  we  must  find  a  more  comfortable  place  to  chat. 
Don't  you  think  the  breeze  is  a  little  too  stiff  here  ?  " 

"  Not  for  me,  but  if  you  feel  chilly,  we  shall  go  in- 
side." 

"  Yes,  do,  please,  it  is  a  little  too  chilly  for  me.  I 
catch  cold  easily,  and  I  must  take  care  of  my  voice." 

She  put  her  hand  to  her  throat,  as  she  said  this,  and 
coughed  slightly. 

"  Ah,  here  is  a  cozy  corner,"  she  said,  preceding  him 
into  the  cabin  — "  let  us  sit  down  here.  And  so  you 
wouldn't  have  recognized  me  ?  " 

He  looked  at  her  curiously.  She  was  a  graceful,  at- 
tractive woman,  who  looked  taller  than  she  was,  and 
younger  than  she  was.  She  had  a  thin  expressive  face, 
with  dark  eyes  and  a  sweet  sensitive  mouth.  Her  hat, 
with  its  rolling  brim,  left  unconcealed  a  great  part  of  her 
reddish  brown  hair,  escaping  the  bonds  of  comb  and  pins, 
in  graceful  waves  and  ringlets  about  her  forehead  and 
ears. 

"  No,  I  don't  see  the  slightest  trace  of  Sophy  Walker." 

She  smiled  delightedly,  and  softly  clapped  her  hands. 

"  That  proves  what  a  good  artist  I  am.  Sophy  Walker 
does  not  exist  any  more.  Sophy  Walker,  the  chrysalis, 
is  now  Nita  Normand,  the  butterfly."  She  paused  a 
moment,  and  then  said  with  real  seriousness : 

"  You  must  forgive  my  rattling  away  in  nonsense  like 
that,  but  seeing  you  suddenly,  has  sort  of  gone  to  my 


28  THE  TRELOARS 

head.  Do  you  know  how  glad  I  am  to  meet  you?  How 
often  I  have  wished  I  might  see  you  to  thank  you  again 
for  what  you  did  for  me,  and  to  show  you  that  it  was 
really  worth  while  doing  it !  " 

"  I  never  doubted  that." 

"  And  you  might  have  doubted  it,  with  good  reason. 
I  am  going  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  the  whole  story.  I 
can't  endure  to  think  that  I  lied  to  you.  I  told  you  that 
the  man  who  deserted  me  was  my  husband.  Well,  he 
wasn't  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  eyes  of  the  law.  I  had  no 
right  to  bear  his  name ;  but  that  was  so  little  a  matter  to 
me  —  a  mere  ceremony  —  and  I  was  as  sure  of  him  as 
I  was  of  myself,  and  would  not  have  bound  him  to  love 
me,  any  more  than  I  would  have  bound  my  mother  over 
by  law  to  love  me.  Isn't  it  glorious  to  have  had  at  least 
once  in  one's  life  so  gorgeous  a  faith  in  one's  fellow- 
man  ?  "  she  laughed  in  a  pretty  musical  way  and  tossed 
her  head,  and  then  in  a  lower  tone,  with  a  little  shiver 
passing  over  her  — "  isn't  it  hideous  to  discover  all  at 
once  that  there  was  no  reason  for  such  a  faith?  Seri- 
ously, I  think  I  should  have  died  in  that  first  hour  of 
discovery,  if  you  hadn't  come  to  save  me.  I  must  tell 
you  how  I  came  out  of  that  state  in  which  you  left  me." 

"  You  went  on  the  stage,  didn't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  do  I  look  like  an  actress  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  that  you  do  particularly,  but  I  see  that 
there  is  a  company  of  actors  on  board  to-night.  Are 
you  one  of  them  ?  " 

"  Yes,  the  leading  lady,  if  you  please." 

"  Had  you  been  an  actress,  before  I  met  you  at  Cher- 
bourg?" 

"  No,  not  exactly ;  though  I  had  recited  in  public,  and 
quite  successfully,  too.  But  I  had  not  yet  developed  a 
real  individuality.  I  wonder  if  I  can  make  you  under- 
stand what  I  mean?  I  mean  that  I  couldn't  stand  alone 
without  holding  hands.  I  was  afraid  of  life,  afraid  of 
myself,  afraid  of  the  world,  and  I  needed  to  be  taught 
that  I  could  stand  on  my  own  feet,  that  I  could  look  at 


THE  TRELOARS  29 

life  steadily  without  veiling  its  realities,  that  I  could  say 
'  yes/  and  it  would  mean  yes ;  and  '  no,'  and  it  would 
mean  no.  You  men  have  no  idea  how  hard  it  is  for  a 
woman  to  grow  a  sort  of  hard  protective  shell  over  all 
that  fatal  softness  of  hers." 

"  Yes,  we  do.  There  are  quite  as  many  soft-shelled 
men  who  must  roll  themselves  in  gravel  and  sand  to  get 
a  tough  outside  coat  that  will  stand  the  wear  and  tear  of 
life.  We  aren't  all  born  with  a  shell,  more's  the  pity." 

She  looked  curiously  at  him  for  a  moment,  as  if  she 
suspected  that  all  might  not  be  well  with  him  and  then 
she  said: 

"  I  see  that  you  do  know,  and  if  you  haven't  yet  con- 
structed a  hard  shell  for  yourself,  let  me  tell  you  the 
secret.  I  began  with  thinking  that  intelligence  is  a  poor 
sort  of  thing,  if  you  can't  use  it  for  anything  but  multiply- 
ing and  preserving  your  wretchedness ;  and  that  the  first 
thing  to  do  was  to  close  the  doors  to  self-pity.  But  how 
ridiculous  of  me  to  be  sermonizing  in  this  way."  She 
paused  and  smiled.  "  I  assure  you  that  it  is  something 
entirely  foreign  to  me.  I  don't  know  that  I  ever  did  it 
before ;  but  when  I  saw  you  striding  past  me,  I  recognized 
you  in  a  minute,  in  spite  of  your  beard;  you  have  a 
peculiar  way  of  carrying  yourself,  your  face  seemed  to 
me  to  show " 

"  That  I  was  miserable,  erT?  " 

"  Yes  —  no,  not  entirely ;  but  then  not  exactly  happy, 
either,  and  I  just  want  to  tell  you  that  nothing  lasts  —  not 
even  a  great  grief,  a  great  love,  a  great  joy,  or  a  great 
wonder.  They  all  pass  away  at  last  into  the  rag-bag  of 
time,  and  if  you  have  intelligence,  you  can  begin  all 
things  new ;  you  can  face  life,  as  if  it  were  a  great  play, 
and  if  you  can't  be  an  actor  in  it,  you  can  at  least  be  a 
spectator." 

"  Suppose  the  play  bores  you  ?  —  suppose  it  is  always 
either  a  tragedy  or  a  stupid  nauseating  farce  ?  " 

"  O,  but  it  can't  be  that  all  the  time.  It  is  a  perpetual 
change  of  scene,  so  that  even  boredom  and  tragedy  can't 
last.  No,  the  play's  the  thing." 


I 
\ 


30  THE  TRELOARS 

"  To  you  who  are  an  actress,  of  course ;  but  you 
haven't  told  me  yet  how  you  became  one.  That  interests 
me." 

"  Thank  you  —  I  am  really  glad  it  does.  Well,  on 
board  the  steamer,  coming  back  to  the  States,  I  was  cast 
for  a  merry  part  in  some  improvised  farce.  A  merry 
part,  if  you  please.  I  with  my  broken  heart,  was  to  make 
others  laugh !  And  I  did  it.  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me, 
tell  how  I  managed  to  do  it;  but  I  threw  my  whole  soul 
into  it,  and  made  quite  a  sensation  in  the  little  ship  world. 
There  happened  to  be  on  board  the  general  manager  of 
a  stock  company  in  New  York,  and  he  was  much  struck 
by  my  talent,  engaged  me  immediately,  said  I  was  a  born 
actress,  and  needed  only  to  learn  a  few  of  the  formalities 
of  the  stage  to  make  a  brilliant  success.  The  upshot  of 
the  matter  was  that  he  fell  in  love  with  me,  quarreled 
with  me,  and  dropped  me,  or  I  dropped  him,  I  don't  re- 
member now  which  it  was.  I  changed  managers, 
traveled  with  various  companies,  and  though  I  have 
never  exactly  made  a  brilliant  success,  I  have  always 
managed  to  hold  my  own,  and  to  be  sought  after,  rather 
than  seek.  I  am  now  leading  lady  in  a  San  Francisco 
stock  company.  Still  it  is  slow  work.  You  see,  I  am 
waiting  for  someone  to  discover  me." 

"  I  believe  I  have  discovered  him  for  you.  I  have  a 
young  friend,  a  really  brilliant  fellow,  who  is  going  into 
journalism  —  I  believe  he  could  appreciate  you,  and 
would  know  how  to  say  so,  if  he  did." 

"  Does  he  live  in  San  Francisco  ?  " 

"  Not  yet,  but  he  intends  going  there  soon.  He  is  liv- 
ing at  home  just  now,  a  few  miles  out  of  Berkeley.  I 
have  just  come  from  there  to-night.  I  must  introduce 
him  to  you." 

"  That's  very  kind  of  you,  but  it  is  especially  so,  be- 
cause it  will  give  me  a  chance  of  seeing  you  again.  I 
don't  want  to  lose  sight  of  you.  I  must  give  you  my 
address  and  a  pass  to  the  theater.  We  are  only  in  Oak- 
land on  Tuesday  nights.  Ah !  there's  the  whistle  blowing 


THE  TRELOARS  31 

for  the  landing.  We  must  say  good-night  to  each  other. 
I  wonder  if  you  really  know  how  genuinely  glad  I  am  to 
see  you  again  ?  " 

She  gave  him  her  hand,  as  she  rose,  and  he  clasped 
it  cordially.  He  too  was  glad  to  see  her,  and  when  they 
had  parted,  and  he  was  alone  again,  he  recalled,  as  if  it 
had  been  yesterday  the  scene  in  Cherbourg  to  which  she 
had  alluded.  He  had  just  arrived  in  France  from  New 
York,  and  was  lounging  about  in  the  park  to  pass  away 
the  time  before  his  train  left  for  Paris.  He  had  reached 
a  retired  and  beautiful  spot  in  the  park  in  the  shadow  of 
a  huge  overhanging  rock,  when  he  was  suddenly  startled 
by  the  sound  of  sobs  and  low  inarticulate  cries  of  suffer- 
ing. Drawing  nearer  to  the  place  whence  the  sounds 
came,  he  saw  a  young  woman  sitting  upon  a  bench,  her 
back  towards  him,  her  face  hidden  in  her  hands,  her 
whole  body  writhing  in  an  agony  of  grief.  Suddenly  she 
lifted  her  head  and  said  aloud:  "/  will  not  live.  I  will 
not  live."  Then  hardly  knowing  why,  so  impulsively 
had  he  acted,  he  stepped  forward  saying :  "  Forgive  me, 
if  I  intrude  upon  you  —  but  I  feel  that  I  have  a  right  to 
speak  to  you,  for  I,  too,  know  what  suffering  is.  Tell 
me  how  I  can  help  you." 

She  stared  at  him  stupidly,  her  eyes  red,  the  lids 
swollen,  her  lips  trembling.  His  heart  filled  with  pity 
as  he  looked  at  her.  He  sat  down  beside  her,  and  with 
tender,  sympathetic  questioning,  he  learned  her  story,  the 
old  story  of  confidence  and  abandonment.  He  learned, 
too,  that  she  had  come  from  the  United  States  and  was 
penniless.  He  could  never  recall  afterwards  just  what 
he  had  said  to  her,  nor  how  he  was  able  to  give  her 
courage  and  the  will  to  live  —  but  he  did  succeed  in  per- 
suading her  to  abandon  her  rash  resolve.  He  gave  her 
money  to  provide  for  her  necessities,  until  she  could  help 
herself.  He  bought  her  a  passage  back  to  the  States  on 
the  vessel  upon  which  he  had  come  to  France,  and  he 
recommended  her  to  the  care  of  the  captain  and  his 
officers. 


32  THE  TRELOARS 

By  a  singular  revulsion  of  feeling  and  contagion  of 
effort,  the  act  of  saving  another  had  saved  himself.  Her 
despair  was  a  vantage  ground  from  which  he  could  more 
truly  regard  his  own  wretchedness,  and  it  began  to  look 
pitifully  small  to  him.  Life  assumed  a  new  value  inde- 
pendent of  emotionalism.  He  despised  himself  as  a 
weakling  for  taking  a  woman's  indifference  so  deeply  to 
heart,  and  resolved  to  win  back  his  self-respect  by  hard- 
ening his  heart,  which  meant  adopting  a  cynical  attitude 
to  life.  He  had  only  one  fear  and  that  was  to  be  the 
victim  of  an  illusion;  he  cultivated  suspicion  and  hatred 
as  virtues ;  he  made  to  himself  the  great  reversal  of  values 
which  calls  itself  the  wisdom  of  our  age.  Max  Stirner's 
Der  Enizige  und  sein  Eigentum  was  his  breviary.  Yet 
after  all,  it  was/  only  a  shell  that  he  had  made  for  him- 
self. _The  mollusk  within  was  as  soft  as  ever.  He  said 
that  to  himself  as  he  walked  up  Market  Street  towards 
his  hotel,  and  he  flouted  himself  for  the  contrast  between 
his  boastful  tirade  about  destroying  the  chains  of  the 
past  and  his  consciousness  of  being  bound  by  them  still. 

When  he  entered  his  room,  he  threw  the  windows  wide 
open  and  let  the  chill  night  fog  rush  in.  He  felt  as  if 
he  were  stifling.  There  was  no  use  in  going  to  bed. 
Sleep  was,  impossible.  He  knew  that  by  some  involun- 
tary obstinacy  of  his  mind,  he  was  to  repeat  over  and 
over  again  the  scenes  of  the  evening.  Far  into  the  night, 
he  brooded  and  pondered,  and  it  was  not  till  the  gray 
dawn  filled  his  room  with  a  subdued  light  that  he  could 
throw  himself  upon  his  couch,  too  weary  to  undress  him- 
self. 

The  world  began  to  brighten  a  little  with  the  lifting  of 
the  morning  fog.  A  broad  flood  of  sunshine  entered' his 
room.  "  The  Dawn,"  he  said  to  himself.  "  I  shall  call 
my  journal  The  Dawn.  I  shall  bring  it  out  weekly.  Of 
course,  it  won't  sell  at  first.  I  shall  have  to  create  an 
audience  for  it,  and  the  best  way  to  do  that  is  to  shock 
the  public." 

He  ordered  a  steak  for  his  breakfast  and  while  he  was 


THE  TRELOARS  33 

waiting  for  it,  he  looked  over  the  morning  paper.  The 
front  page  was  hideously  marred  by  gigantic  black  and 
red  head-lines,  announcing  a  horrible  murder;  while 
further  down  the  page,  two  sensational  divorce  cases 
were  reported  in  full,  with  huge  cuts  of  the  heads  of 
the  unhappy  wretches.  He  turned  over  the  pages ;  every- 
where, there  was  the  same  concern  to  print  the  frightful, 
the  surprising,  the  shocking,  except  perhaps  in  the 
woman's  columns  where  directions  for  coloring  the  hair, 
removing  freckles,  tan  and  wrinkles,  were  mingled  with 
notes  on  dress,  among  which  was  the  announcement  that 
if  my  lady  wished  to  be  quite  chic,  she  must  see  to  it  that 
her  prayer-book  matched  her  Sunday  gown.  When  he 
came  to  the  funny  page  with  its  driveling  puerilities  in 
drawing  and  subject,  Max  threw  down  his  paper  with  a 
feeling  of  actual  nausea.  "  If  that's  the  pabulum  the 
public  feeds  on,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  it  would  take  an 
earthquake  to  shock  it." 

When  the  waiter  brought  in  his  breakfast,  he  said  to 
him: 

"  Is  there  anybody  in  San  Francisco  idiotic  enough  to 
laugh  at  that  drivel  ?  " 

"  Sir  ?  "  said  the  waiter,  rather  surprised  at  the  wrath- 
ful countenance  turned  towards  him. 

"  Do  you  think  that  rot's  funny  ?  "  and  he  thrust  the 
offending  paper  under  the  waiter's  nose. 

"  Well,  yes,  sir,  I  think's  it's  kind  'o  funny.  The  chil- 
dren's all  crazy  about  it." 

"  They  are,  are  they  ?  Well,  you  take  it  out  to  the 
kitchen,  and  give  it  to  the  baby  to  play  with." 

The  waiter  smiled,  as  he  picked  up  the  paper.  He 
thought  that  the  gentleman  was  as  funny  as  the  pictures, 
though  in  a  somewhat  different  way. 

The  gentleman,  left  to  himself,  continued  his  wrathful 
musings.  His  ideas  about  shocking  the  public  on  his 
own  account  had  received  a  shock  in  their  turn.  It  would 
be  an  Herculean  task  to  shock  a  public  at  once  so  prurient 
and  so  naive  that  it  required  both  depravity  and  imbecil- 


34  THE  TRELOARS 

ity  to  administer  to  its  tastes.  But  surely  there  was  an- 
other public  of  readers  —  thoughtful  men  and  women  to 
whom  gossip  and  puerilities  meant  nothing,  and  ideas 
everything  —  who  read  books,  not  to  kill  time,  but  to  fill 
time  with  food  for  thought.  What  new  books  were  they 
reading?  Who  was  writing  for  them?  His  breakfast 
finished,  he  went  out  into  the  street  intending  to  find  an 
answer  to  these  questions  by  visiting  the  book  shops  and 
libraries. 

The  beautiful  city  had  changed  much  for  the  better, 
since  he  left  it.  The  ravages  of  the  earthquake  and  the 
fire  were  effaced  by  broad  well-paved  streets  and  hand- 
some new  buildings;  and  a  general  air  of  cheerfulness 
and  prosperity  made  it  almost  impossible  to  believe  that 
the  city  had  so  recently  suffered  a  terrible  calamity.  But 
it  was  not  the  favorable  aspect  of  things  that  struck  him. 
Like  a  careful  housemaid  intent  upon  her  cleaning,  it  was 
not  the  beauty  of  the  picture,  but  the  dust  on  the  frame 
that  attracted  his  attention.  A  huge  wooden  hand  with 
the  word  palmistry  painted  in  gilt  letters  across  it,  swing- 
ing from  the  second  story  of  a  tall  building ;  windows  on 
which  the  words,  Clairvoyant,  New  Thought,  Trance 
Medium,  Christian  Science  Rooms,  Mind  Healer,  were 
printed  in  staring  white  letters,  were  the  things  that 
caught  his  eye,  because  he  was  thinking  of  the  singular 
renaissance  of  superstition  in  an  age  that  calls  itself  scien- 
tific; and  was  marveling  at  that  curious  and  incurable 
weakness  of  the  human  mind  which  makes  it  incapable 
of  ridding  itself  of  one  folly  or  error,  without  immedi- 
ately accepting  another  in  its  place. 

Holding  that  every  man  is  a  law  unto  himself  and  to 
no  one  else,  it  did  not  occur  to  him,  any  more  than  it  does 
to  any  other  anarchist,  that  according  to  his  individual- 
istic doctrines,  every  man  has  a  perfect  right  to  make  a 
consummate  ass  of  himself  if  he  likes,  and  to  induce 
other  asses  to  accept  his  braying  for  celestial  music,  if  he 
chooses  to  call  it  such;  and  that  instead  of  feeling  dis- 
gusted at  the  variety  and  confusion  of  thought  so  char- 


THE  TRELOARS  35 

acteristic  of  modern  civilization,  he  ought  gladly  to  ac- 
cept it  as  the  logical  outcome  of  his  teachings.  But  Max, 
like  other  reformers  of  his  type,  had  not  yet  risen  to  the 
virtue  of  consistency,  or  possibly  would  have  scornfully 
rejected  it,  on  the  score  of  its  being  a  virtue,  a  word 
under  his  especial  ban  and  particularly  fatal  to  his 
equanimity. 

He  sought  the  public  library  and  looked  over  the  cur- 
rent periodical  literature  to  catch  the  trend  of  public 
interest.  He  discovered  that  there  really  did  exist  a 
serious  literature  represented  by  a  few  thoughtful 
writers  who  were  for  the  most  part  conservative,  inclined 
to  look  backward  with  admiration,  rather  than  forward 
with  intrepidity  and  confidence,  because  they  were  men 
who  were  not  afraid  of  dates.  They  knew  that  the  sun- 
shine was  as  bright  a  thousand  years  ago,  as  it  is  to-day, 
and  just  as  good  for  cheer  and  growth;  therefore  they 
refused  to  accept  the  babyish  phrase  "  up-to-date  "  as  a 
standard  of  excellence,  and  to  reject  everything  as  bad 
that  did  not  smell  strong  of  varnish.  They  recognized  a 
standard  of  good  and  evil,  and  felt  that  literature  has  a 
nobler  mission  than  that  of  shortening  the  idle  day  of 
an  idle  mar  or  woman.  They  believed  it  to  be  the  prod-  ' 
uct  of  broad  experience,  large  knowledge  and  deep  in- 
sight instead  of  the  outcome  of  an  incurable  itch  for 
notoriety,  and  a  colossal  egotism  that  would  project  its 
shadow  over  heaven  and  earth,  and  scrawl  a  capital  /  on 
the  universe.  They  were  alive  to  an  awakening  in  the 
direction  of  ethical  and  philosophical  thought;  but  no- 
where, so  it  seemed  to  Max,  was  there  a  complete  con- 
sciousness of  the  legitimate  conclusion  of  these  discover- 
ies, nowhere  a  decided  break  with  the  past  and  a  frank 
acceptance  of  new  conditions ;  but  everywhere  an  effort 
at  compromise,  a  mending  of  old  wine  skins  with  new 
leather. 

He  turned  his  attention  to  the  popular  literature  of  the 
day,  but  only  to  find  confusion  worse  confounded.  The 
readers  of  this  driveling  stuff  recalled  to  his  memory  the 


36  THE  TRELOARS 

jostling  crowds  at  a  country  fair,  where  every  fakir  who 
can  scream  the  loudest  and  utter  the  most  ineffable  non- 
sense draws  the  largest  and  most  delighted  crowds. 
Everybody  who  had  nothing  to  say  seemed  bent  upon 
saying  something,  and  if  he  had  no  language,  he  invented 
one,  and  called  himself  inspired ;  or  he  revived  all  the 
obsolete  words  he  could  find  in  the  dictionary ;  or  adopted 
literal  translations  from  foreign  tongues,  and  plumed 
himself  upon  his  originality. 

Max  turned  away  with  contempt  and  disgust.  To 
him,  it  was  the  old  story  of  the  triumph  of  mediocrity  — 
the  little  man  on  top  —  his  silly  and  frenzied  bawling 
drowning  the  voice  of  the  man  of  genius  and  the  voice 
of  the  sage.  It  was  the  natural  outcome  of  the  fatal 
error  of  democracy  with  its  ridiculous  ideas  of  equality 
among  men,  its  absurd  and  criminal  process  of  artificial 
levelings  through  the  voice  of  the  majority,  and  its  senti- 
mental humanitarianism  which  preserves  the  weak  at  the 
expense  of  the  strong  —  a  scheme  absolutely  contrary  to 
nature  who  sets  up  barriers  everywhere,  lest  the  weak 
should  be  confounded  with  the  strong,  the  little  with  the 
great.  And  no  one  was  protesting  since  the  eloquent 
voice  of  Nietzsche  was  silent.  Well,  The  Dawn  would 
protest;  The  Dawn  would  speak  in  the  name  of  true 
progress  which  recognizes  that  "  might  is  right,"  that  the 
domination  of  the  world  belongs  to  those  who  have  the 
strength  to  seize  it  and  the  power  to  keep  it.  And  Max 
really  meant  strength  and  power ;  he  did  not  mean  the 
desire  of  them  which  so  many  weaklings  confound  with 
their  possession,  and  he  was  as  much  disgusted  with  that 
confusion  as  Nietzsche  would  be,  could  he  see  crawling 
in  the  sunshine  of  their  self-begotten  glory,  all  the  puny 
breed  of  egotistical  vermin  which  his  Zarathnstra  has 
brought  forth. 

Max  was  not  entirely  a  fool;  but  he  was  cursed  with 
that  fastidious  and  irritable  self-love  which  presents  a 
vulnerable  side  to  all  points  of  the  horizon,  and  trebles 
and  quadruples  a  man's  capacity  for  pain.  He  had  be- 


THE  TRELOARS  37 

gun  life  with  a  host  of  false  romantic  ideas,  and  his 
disillusionment  had  been  followed  by  revolt  and  bitter- 
ness, instead  of  that  smiling  and  gentle  tolerance  which  is 
the  essence  of  true  culture.  He  hated  furiously,  and 
wished  to  destroy  what  had  most  humiliated  him.  A 
sense  of  power  that  had  not  yet  found  a  worthy  outlet 
struggled  in  him  with  an  infuriating  consciousness  of 
impotence  to  break  the  narrow  boundaries  of  his  monot- 
onous life. 


CHAPTER  IV 

As  Dick  walked  slowly  back  to  the  house  after  bidding 
Max  good-night,  he  had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  of 
not  having  rightly  fitted  into  his  old  friendship  with 
him.  He  had  been  very  fond  of  Max  in  their  college 
days  together,  having  found  him  at  once  stimulating  and 
congenial.  Stimulating  he  certainly  was,  still,  in  an  irri- 
tating and  aggressive  way  that  depressed,  rather  than 
inspired,  but  of  congeniality  between  them,  there  was 
little  trace.  What  was  the  matter  with  Max?  Was  he 
really  in  earnest,  or  was  he  simply  in  an  ill-tempered 
mood?  Dick  was  familiar  with  these  changeable  moods 
of  his,  during  which  he  was  either  all  honey  or  all  dirt, 
according  as  something  went  well  or  ill  with  him.  At 
any  rate,  he  had  been  great  fun  for  his  father  who  saw  in 
Max's  views  an  exact  fulfillment  of  his  own  predictions 
regarding  the  logical  results  of  materialistic  doctrines; 
but  Margaret  — how  did  she  feel  about  him? 

He  found  her  sitting  alone  in  the  living-room,  a  flower 
in  her  hand,  the  petals  of  which  she  seemed  to  be  ex- 
amining curiously,  but  there  was  a  puzzled  painful 
expression  upon  her  face  which  indicated  that  she  was 
not  thinking  of  the  flower. 

"  Has  father  gone  upstairs  ?  "  Dick  asked. 

"  Yes,  he  went  up  just  as  soon  as  you  were  all  gone." 

"And  Catherine,  too?" 


38  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Yes ;  did  you  want  to  see  her  ?  " 

"  No ;  I  don't  want  anybody  but  you." 

He  drew  a  chair  close  to  her,  and  asked  abruptly: 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  him?" 

"  I  don't  know  know  what  to  think  of  him,  Dick," 
answered  Margaret,  laying  her  flower  on  the  table  near 
her.  "  It  is  all  a  puzzle  to  me.  He  is  greatly  changed, 
unless —  You  don't  think  he  was  just  trying  to  draw 
father  out,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No,  we  had  a  long  serious  talk  together  as  we  walked 
out  home.  According  to  his  present  views,  civilization's 
a  failure,  and  savagery  isn't  any  nearer  right,  and  the 
only  hope  for  the  future  lies  in  an  entire  readjustment 
of  social  and  individual  values.  He  is  particularly  bitter 
against  the  family.  He  says  every  home  is  a  center  of 
selfishness  that  leads  to  the  destruction  of  heroism;  and 
he  is  bitter  against  the  domination  of  women,  in  short 
I  don't  know  anything  he  isn't  bitter  against." 

Margaret's  face  brightened  into  a  smile  as  she  asked: 

"  Dick,  does  that  sound  a  little  to  you  like  the  sour 
grapes  fable?  Have  you  ever  noticed  that  the  men 
who  are  the  most  impressible  to  a  woman's  influence  are 
the  very  ones  who  denounce  it  most  severely  ?  " 

"  That's  so.  Max  may  have  been  severely  burnt,  and 
these  ugly  opinions  of  his  may  be  only  the  scars.  I 
hadn't  thought  of  that.  However,  if  a  woman  is  at  the 
bottom  of  them,  she  hasn't  been  the  right  sort  of  woman, 
or  she  would  have  made  a  different  man  of  him.  Max 
had  good  stuff  in  him." 

Margaret  moved  restlessly  on  her  chair,  and  then 
said: 

"  I  don't  know.  I  wouldn't  judge  her  unseen,  Dick. 
There  are  certain  wayward  natures  that  crosses  embit- 
ter. You  remember  that  Max  ran  away  from  home  be- 
cause of  a  slight,  and  could  neither  forget  nor  forgive 
it.  I  wonder  why  he  came  back ;  did  he  tell  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  wants  me  to  go  into  some  sort  of  literary 
venture  with  him." 


THE  TRELOARS  39 

"  But  you  can't  of  course ;  you've  made  a  contract  with 
Mr.  Cressy  for  journalistic  work  on  his  paper." 

Margaret  looked  anxiously  at  Dick,  and  as  he  did  not 
reply,  she  went  on: 

"  And  then  you're  entirely  at  variance  with  him  on 
the  subject  of  art  and  literature,  if  I  may  judge  from 
what  he  said  at  dinner  about  the  ideals  of  the  present 
generation.  I  felt  quite  shoved  out  of  my  generation, 
didn't  you?" 

"  I  didn't  really  pay  much  attention  to  what  he  said, 
for  I  found  I  couldn't  make  head  nor  tail  of  it.  So  far 
as  I  do  understand  him,  he  seems  to  think  that  you  can 
make  art  and  literature  out  of  scientific  abstractions  and 
theories.  We've  had  a  static  art  and  static  literature, 
because  we  ignorantly  suppose  everything  at  rest.  Now, 
we're  to  have  a  dynamic  art  and  dynamic  literature  be- 
cause we  realize  the  eternal  flux  of  things.  It's  a  scream- 
ing farce  to  me,  this  attempt  to  visualize  the  invisible, 
paint  an  abstraction  or  speak  to  a  sense  perception  of 
motion  that  does  not  at  all  exist  in  us.  For  us,  the  world 
does  stand  still,  and  if  you  try  to  paint  a  dance  of  atoms 
—  they  won't  dance  to  the  eye,  no  matter  what  you 
call  them.  They'll  stand  as  still  as  ever —  But  Max  is 
for  trying  to  make  things  hum  and  move  in  a  huge  '  let 
fly '  as  Whitman  called  it." 

"This  isn't  Max's  invention,  is  it?" 

"  O,  no,  he  says  that  there  are  cliques  of  writers  and 
artists  in  Europe  carrying  out  these  ideas  and  making  a 
great  sensation." 

"  Dick,  it  is  nothing  but  an  immense  bluff  of  impotence 
and  ignorance.  When  a  man  can  really  do  things  well, 
he  does  them  as  clever  people  always  have  done  them. 
When  he  can't,  he  botches  his  work  because  he  can't  help 
it,  and  if  he  is  a  bluffer,  he  says  he  does  it  on  purpose 
because  he  has  an  original  idea.  You  can't  have  art 
and  literature  without  feeling,  any  more  than  you  can 
have  palatable  bread  without  yeast.  It  takes  the  leaven 
of  emotion  to  raise  anything  above  mediocrity.  That's 
a  kitchen  metaphor,  but  it  is  true  all  the  same." 


40  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Yes,  I  think  you're  right,  but  all  this  nonsense  isn't 
troubling  me.  Max  has  his  head  a  little  turned  just  now, 
but  I  think  he'll  come  to  himself  again  out  here  with  us. 
What  does  trouble  me,  Margaret,  is  something  he  said 
about  you." 

"About  me?"  Margaret  reddened,  and  opened  her 
eyes  very  wide. 

"  Yes,  about  you.  He  says  we  have  all  let  you  sacri- 
fice your  life  for  us,  without  so  much  as  a  '  thank  you.' 
Somehow  it  struck  home  to  me,  and  I  have  been  think- 
ing how  constantly  you  are  caring  for  all  of  us,  and  how 
little  we  do  for  you." 

"  Come  now,  Dick,  no  more  of  that,"  and  Margaret 
rising,  put  her  small  hand  playfully  over  Dick's  mouth. 
"  It  was  horrible  of  him  to  say  that,  for  it  is  not  at  all 
true.  It  is  I  who  am  the  debtor  of  the  family,  not  the 
creditor.  The  great  thing  you  all  do  for  me,  is  to  let  me 
love  you  and  care  for  you —  Why,  Dick,  I  am  the 
richest  woman  in  America.  But  I  am  saddened  when 
I  think  that  my  present  happiness  cannot  last." 

"  And  why  not  ?  "  queried  Dick. 

"  Now  that  I  have  made  a  man  out  of  the  dear  boy  to 
whom  I  have  been  mother  and  sister,  I  know  that  some 
other  woman  is  destined  to  take  my  first  place  in  your 
heart.  At  times  there  comes  over  me  a  sickly  morbid 
dread  of  it,  a  sort  of  chill  fear.  It  isn't  right  of  me,  I 
know,  but  I  can't  help  it.  It  seems  to  me  as  if  no  woman 
in  the  world  is  quite  good  enough  and  noble  enough  for 
you.  There  are  so  many  silly  babyish  women  in  the  world, 
with  the  deadly  gift  of  beauty,  incapable  of  really  loving 
anything  but  themselves:  there  are  so  many  parasitic 
vampire  women  with  the  deadly  gift  of  charm,  incapable 
of  fidelity  to  any  one;  and  the  really  good,  devoted 
woman  is  often  so  simple,  so  homely,  so  devoid  of  out- 
ward grace  that  she  can't  attract  youth  and  yet " 

Dick  interrupted  her  with  a  burst  of  laughter. 

"  O  Margaret,  Margaret,  what  a  funny  girl  you  are ! 
Do  you  want  me  to  take  an  oath  that  I  shall  never  get 
married?" 


THE  TRELOARS  41 

"  O,  no !  no !  You'd  be  sure  to  break  it,  for  there  is 
something  irritating  about  an  oath  or  a  promise  that  never 
lets  you  rest  till  you've  broken  it." 

"  But  I  think  I  could  take  an  oath  for  ten  years,  and 
not  be  troubled  about  breaking  it.  I  am  in  no  hurry  to 
double  my  responsibilities.  I've  my  own  life  problem  to 
solve  before  thinking  of  complicating  it  with  somebody 
else's." 

"  That's  the  way  I  like  to  hear  you  talk,  Dick.  That's 
sensible.  I  don't  want  you  to  have  your  wings  clipped, 
before  you've  had  a  long  flight.  Marrying  too  early 
would  be  just  clipping  your  wings.  You  would  need  to 
turn  drudge  to  keep  up  an  establishment  of  your  own, 
and  you  know  the  fount  of  the  muses  is  intermittent  in 
its  flow.  It  is  not  an  artesian  well,  at  which  you  can 
fill  your  pitcher  whenever  it  is  empty." 

"  But  Margaret,  what  in  the  world  ever  started  you  to 
thinking  about  my  getting  married  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  Dick.  I  suppose  it  is  because  you  are 
going  away  from  home  for  the  first  time.  You've  al- 
ways been  used  to  being  petted  by  me  and  having  me 
tagging  about  after  you,  and  when  a  man  gets  used  to 
a  woman  about  him,  he  can't  get  along  without  one." 

"  Ho !  ho !  Miss  Wisdom ;  and  how  about  a  woman's 
getting  used  to  a  man  ?  What  guarantee  have  I  that  you 
won't  be  looking  around  for  some  other  young  man  to 
pet  and  tag  around  after?  Really  I  begin  to  be  quite 
anxious  about  you,  for  I  don't  relish  the  thought  of  your 
petting  somebody  else  as  you  do  me." 

"  Ah,  but  I've  father,  you  know,  and  Catherine." 

"  Yes,  but  you  will  still  have  a  surplus  stock  of  petting 
on  hand  that  you've  been  giving  to  me." 

"  I  shall  save  it  all  up  for  you  when  you  come  home 
Saturday  nights.  Isn't  it  glorious  that  you  are  to  have 
every  Sunday  with  us?  Really,  if  it  weren't  for  that, 
Dick,  I  don't  believe  I  should  be  brave  enough  to  let 
you  go.  I  should  be  teasing  father  to  move  over  to  San 
Francisco.  Yet  I  know  he  wouldn't  be  happy  there.  It 


42  THE  TRELOARS 

is  so  beautiful  and  quiet  here;  and  then  Doctor  Parker 
and  he  are  such  old  friends,  it  wouldn't  do  to  separate 
them.  But  listen!  There!  do  you  hear  that?  The 
clock  is  striking  twelve.  We  must  be  off  to  bed.  Turn 
out  the  light,  Dick.  I  can  find  my  way  upstairs  without 
it.  Good-night,  dear  boy,  and  sleep  well.  I  am  sure  that 
I  shall." 

Perhaps  she  thought  she  would,  but  she  did  not.  She 
lay  broad  awake  for  many  hours  in  pained  amazement  at 
the  revelations  of  the  day.  She  herself  was  so  tenacious 
in  her  feelings  and  opinions,  that  all  violent  changes  were 
inexplicable  to  her,  and  shocked  and  hurt  her  like  a  sud- 
den fall  from  some  high  place  where  one  is  walking 
securely. 

Margaret  Treloar's  life  was  no  scintillating  frag- 
mentary picture  life,  but  a  beautiful  whole,  rich  in 
thought,  rich  in  feeling.  Her  responsibilities  had  begun 
early  in  life.  She  was  but  twelve  years  old  at  the  time  of 
the  death  of  her  mother  —  a  delicate,  high-bred  woman 
of  whose  beauty  and  gentleness,  Margaret  retained  a 
vivid  recollection.  She  remembered,  also,  her  tastes,  her 
love  of  books  and  flowers,  her  quick  musical  ear,  and 
certain  turns  of  expression  peculiar  to  her  which  she 
related  to  the  little  brother  and  sister  left  to  her  care. 
Neither  did  she  forget  the  singularly  protecting  love 
with  which  her  mother  had  smoothed  over  the  rough 
places  in  her  father's  life  —  going  always  before  him, 
gentle,  sweet,  yet  so  strong  and  true,  to  see  that  there 
were  no  lions  in  the  way ;  and  if  there  were,  to  direct  him 
into  another  path,  or  to  attract  to  herself  the  attention 
of  the  lions,  while  he  passed  by  unharmed.  How  often 
her  mother  had  said  to  her :  "  Margaret,  dear,  if  anything 
ever  goes  wrong  or  troubles  you,  don't  bother  dear  papa 
about  it,  just  come  to  me.  Papa  has  so  much  to  think 
of,  that  we  must  spare  him  every  annoyance  that  we 
can."  She  had  not  at  first  understood  just  what  particu- 
lar annoyances  her  father  had  to  endure;  but  later,  she 
understood  it  all,  and  admired  her  mother's  loving  loyalty 
and  imitated  it  as  best  she  could. 


THE  TRELOARS  43 

Her  father,  Philip  Treloar,  was  one  of  that  singularly 
interesting  class  of  men  who  are  of  immense  promise  in 
their  youth,  and  mediocre  performance  in  their  maturity ; 
but  who  retain  over  those  who  have  known  them  in  their 
bud  and  blossom  time,  the  charm  of  this  early  beauty 
and  promise.  They  are  men  whose  activity  lies  chiefly 
in  their  range  of  thought,  broadly  assimilative,  rather 
than  original,  incapable  of  concentrating  their  energies  in 
any  one  direction,  because  of  the  many  interesting  paths 
that  open  up  to  their  eager  curiosity. 

When  Philip  Treloar  and  his  young  bride  settled  down 
in  a  fair-sized  town  of  Southern  Illinois,  where  he  had 
been  called  to  the  pastorate  of  an  Episcopal  church,  he 
found  his  congregation  chiefly  composed  of  conservatives. 
He  was  very  successful  the  first  year,  and  the  little  church 
was  filled  to  overflowing  Sunday  after  Sunday  with  men 
and  women  of  all  denominations  who  came  to  hear  the 
brilliant  young  pastor  and  went  away  with  nothing  but 
praise  for  his  eloquence.  But  the  young  pastor  was  by 
no  means  at  the  end  of  his  intellectual  journey;  he  had 
many  a  mile  of  dark,  solitary  travel  before  him.  He  fell 
under  the  influence  of  Kant,  Hegel,  Fichte,  and  finally  of 
Tolstoi,  and  he  began  to  feel  that  the  Christianity  which 
he  was  preaching  was  as  hard  and  materialistic  as  the 
creed  of  Haeckel;  and  as  far  from  representing  the 
teachings  of  Christ  as  the  dim  light  of  a  cavern  can 
represent  the  effulgence  of  the  sun  in  the  heavens.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  metaphors  had  been  petrified  into 
creeds ;  that  glimpses  of  truths  uttered  in  the  poetical 
language  of  an  inspired  seer  had  been  clothed  with  a 
definite  form  which  not  only  did  not  belong  to  them,  but 
utterly  falsified  them;  and  he  rejected  the  orthodox  ideas 
of  heaven  and  hell  with  horror.  The  eternal  life  seemed 
to  him  no  peculiar  gift  of  death,  but  a  part  of  the  pres-  ' 
ent ;  and  hell  and  heaven  were  respectively  represented  on 
earth  by  materialism  and  spirituality.  God  was  the  spirit 
of  life  in  everything.  God  was  in  him  ;  and  in  the  rapture 
of  this  thought,  he  swung  himself  to  dizzy  heights,  where 


44  THE  TRELOARS 

all  the  petty  actions  of  this  life  —  its  envies,  its  duplici- 
ties, its  cruelties,  its  lusts,  looked  to  him  like  the  child's 
play  of  a  moment;  and  to  see  all  things  after  Spinoza's 
fashion,  "  under  the  aspect  of  eternity,"  became  the  rule 
of  his  intellectual  life. 

It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  young  clergy- 
man soon  wandered  into  unfamiliar  channels  of  creed  that 
his  congregation  could  not  accept  —  and  in  the  end,  talked 
himself  out  of  the  pulpit. 

The  upshot  of  it  was,  that  he  went  out  of  the  church 
never  to  enter  it  as  a  pastor  again.  But  the  truth,  as  he 
saw  it,  burned  within  him  for  utterance,  and  he  betook 
himself  to  his  pen.  It  was  then  that  his  brave  gifted  wife 
took  upon  her  shoulders  the  burden  of  making  a  living, 
while  he  read,  wrote  and  thought.  They  moved  farther 
west  into  a  rapidly  rising  commercial  town  where  they 
rented  a  large  house,  sub-letting  the  greater  part  of  it; 
and  Mrs.  Treloar  gave  lessons  in  music  and  in  china 
painting,  until  her  health  gave  way  under  the  strain. 
Mrs.  Treloar  had  the  courage  to  give  her  daughter  the 
education  which  she  herself  had  received.  She  taught 
her  how  to  cook,  to  sew,  to  keep  the  house  in  order,  but 
not  to  let  these  necessary  activities  so  much  absorb  her  as 
to  neglect  her  intellectual  growth.  "  Better  a  little  dust 
on  the  furniture  than  on  the  mind,"  she  used  to  say. 
"  The  house  should  serve  the  woman,  not  the  woman  the 
house." 

Before  Margaret  herself  could  read,  her  mother  used  to 
read  to  her  out  of  the  fine  old  books  which  have  been 
meat  and  drink  to  many  generations,  and  required  the 
child  to  repeat  what  had  been  read  to  her  as  well  as  she 
could,  in  order  to  train  her  in  correctly  and  easily  express- 
ing herself.  She  set  her  the  task  of  learning  fine  poems 
embodying  a  noble  sentiment  or  rendering  a  beautiful 
description  in  choice  language,  thus  laying  the  founda- 
tions of  a  correct  and  cultivated  taste.  She  laid,  too,  the 
foundations  of  a  sound  morality,  teaching  her  the  love  of 
truth,  purity,  sincerity  and  the  broad  charity  which 


THE  TRELOARS  45 

refuses  judgment  till  all  the  truth  is  known.  In  short, 
Mrs.  Treloar  believed  that  real  education  means  resource- 
fulness, the  power  to  employ  one's  leisure  well,  to  know 
what  to  do  with  one's  self  when  the  reins  of  duty  are  re- 
laxed, and  the  daily  tasks  are  done.  She  believed,  too, 
that  it  meant  the  capacity  for  continuous  growth,  for  self- 
help;  not  something  completed  at  eighteen  and  rounded 
off  with  a  diploma. 

A  deep,  long,  passionate  grief  —  the  first  irreparable 
loss  to  the  young  child's  heart  —  a  loss  so  great  that  it 
seemed  at  first  that  she  could  not  live  through  it  —  then 
sweet  serenity  and  boundless  faith.  One  day,  a  few 
weeks  after  her  mother's  death,  her  father  heard  her 
singing  at  her  work  and  he  thought  her  grief  had  been 
childish  and  transient,  and  that  she  was  too  young  to 
understand  her  loss.  But  it  pained  him  deeply  to  think 
so,  and  the  pain  showed  in  his  face  as  he  looked  at  her. 
But  the  child  was  only  trying  to  be  courageous  for  his 
sake. 

One  day,  by  chance,  Mr.  Treloar  saw  an  advertisement 
for  some  one  to  take  charge  of  an  orange  ranch  in  Cal- 
ifornia, for  half  the  profits  on  the  sale  of  the  fruit.  Here 
was  an  open  gate  to  a  new  life.  He  penned  his  answer 
with  the  greatest  care,  stating  frankly  how  little  he  knew 
about  raising  oranges,  but  how  eagerly  he  would  apply 
himself  to  learn  how  to  do  it.  How  long  the  days  seemed 
till  the  answer  came.  With  what  eager  fingers  he  tore 
open  the  envelope,  his  quick  eye  catching  at  once  the  favor- 
able reply  penned  by  an  old  college  acquaintance,  Dr.  Jo- 
seph Parker.  He  remembered  Parker  as  a  somewhat  re- 
served fellow,  particularly  interested  in  science,  while  he 
himself  was  interested  in  literature  and  philosophy.  The 
diversity  of  their  tastes  had  separated  them,  but  they  had 
met  frequently  enough  to  remember  each  other  distinctly 
after  the  lapse  of  years.  Treloar  sold  the  greater  part  of 
his  household  furniture,  packed  his  books  and  a  few 
things  which  had  a  sentimental  value  to  him  through  asso- 
ciation, sent  them  ahead  of  him,  and  left  with  his  family 
for  the  Pacific  Coast. 


46  THE  TRELOARS 

It  had  been  a  wise  step  to  take.  Work  and  responsi- 
bility are  the  great  salves  for  the  wounds  of  the  heart. 
Treloar  had  been  in  danger  of  becoming  a  book  worm 
interested  in  little  but  metaphysical  speculations;  he  had 
been  in  danger  of  hardening  under  the  repeated  blows  of 
misfortune.  He  needed  more  than  anything  else  to  be 
taken  out  of  himself,  and  to  come  into  harmonious  re- 
lations with  his  fellowmen.  Naturally  social  and  ex- 
pansive in  his  temperament,  his  new  life  absolutely  free 
from  conventions,  gave  him  an  opportunity  to  be  himself. 
He  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  out  of  doors,  mingled 
with  his  laborers  on  an  equal  footing,  laughed  at  their 
coarse  jests  and  told  coarse  jests  in  return.  He  touched 
the  earth  and  felt  it  good  under  his  feet. 

Five  years  after  Mr.  Treloar's  removal  to  California, 
the  same  great  sorrow  came  to  Dr.  Parker.  His  wife 
died  leaving  him  a  little  girl,  about  three  years  old,  and 
he  invited  Treloar  to  settle  upon  a  beautiful  estate  of  his 
among  the  Berkeley  Hills,  only  two  or  three  miles  distant 
from  his  own  home.  He  asked  of  Treloar  only  a  nominal 
rent  to  save  his  independence,  and  begged  him  to  let  the 
rent  go  towards  an  ultimate  possession  of  the  farm.  He 
himself  was  rich  and  was  anxious  to  secure  an  interesting 
neighbor.  A  warm  attachment  soon  sprang  up  between 
the  two  men  based  upon  an  ardent  love  of  truth  and  the 
need  to  search  it.  The  frankness  and  openness  of 
Treloar's  character,  his  incapability  of  holding  a  grudge 
or  of  prolonging  a  fit  of  ill-humor  into  injustice,  char- 
acteristics which,  to  the  short-sighted,  argue  instability 
and  softness,  were  the  first  things  that  drew  Parker  to 
him,  as  evidences  of  a  capacity  for  companionship  that 
would  stand  the  test  of  time.  He  was  not  mistaken. 

Fifteen  years  of  unbroken  friendship  made  the  record 
of  their  association  amidst  the  Berkeley  Hills.  In  that 
time  Treloar  had  acquired  possession  of  the  farm ;  and, 
thanks  to  Margaret's  excellent  management,  was  in  easy 
circumstances.  He  had  been  able  to  give  his  son  a  uni- 
versity education;  and  he  had  spent  a  year  abroad  with 


THE  TRELOARS  47 

his  children,  visiting  the  most  interesting  parts  of  Europe. 
Margaret  always  spoke  of  this  year  abroad  with  her 
father  as  her  university  training;  and  in  directing  and 
confirming  her  tastes,  in  broadening  her  views  of  life  by 
contact  with  so  many  various  phases  of  it,  perhaps  no 
mere  university  course  could  have  quite  equalled  it. 

Then,  too,  she  saw  her  father  at  his  best  in  all  the 
range  of  his  wide  culture  and  the  warm  contagious  en- 
thusiasm of  his  quick  bright  intellect.  How  proud  she 
was  of  him !  How  easily  he  was  first  wherever  he  went 
by  virtue  of  that  restless,  impetuous  curiosity  which  had 
led  him  into  all  domains  of  intellectual  activity  —  science, 
art,  music,  literature,  languages,  ancient  and  modern. 
And  with  all  his  learning  and  versatility,  so  absolutely  re- 
moved from  pedantry  that  the  ignorant  and  the  poor  in 
spirit  felt  as  much  at  home  in  his  presence  as  any  of  his 
peers.  The  only  time  that  she  refused  to  echo  her 
father's  admiration  was  when  they  stood  in  the  Louvre 
before  Leonardi's  immortal  Mono,  Lisa. 

"  Really,  father,  I  think  she's  very  unattractive.  I 
don't  like  that  sly  way  in  which  she  smiles  out  of  the 
corner  of  her  eyes.  I  shouldn't  like  to  have  to  look  at 
her  long." 

"  And  I,"  answered  her  father,  "  I  should  like  to  look 
at  her  forever.  It  is  the  lure  of  the  eternal  feminine, 
the  mystery  of  the  woman  soul,  deliciously  clothed  in 
flesh." 

He  bought  a  large  photograph  of  the  portrait  to  hang 
in  his  study  at  home.  Margaret  could  never  understand 
why  it  should  fascinate  her  father,  and  though  it  hung 
now  in  his  study,  and  she  had  attentively  looked  at  it 
many  a  time,  trying  to  feel  its  power,  she  was  still  of 
the  opinion  that  it  was  rather  a  space-filler  than  an  orna- 
ment to  the  room.  Perhaps  if  she  could  have  under- 
stood, she  might  better  have  understood  Max  Gietmann, 
when  he  had  indignantly  refused  the  compassionate  alms 
of  her  friendship;  and  why  there  is  a  germ  of  hatred  in 
the  most  passionate  love,  capable  of  hideous  and  terrible 


48  THE  TRELOARS 

development.  Love,  to  her,  was  all  that  the  poets  and 
sentimentalists  have  sung  it  —  a  perpetual  radiance  of 
light  and  joy.  And  now  Max  had  come  back  so  altered, 
so  self-sufficient,  so  full  of  strange  and  repulsive  ideas. 
Did  he  hate  her  now  ?  Would  he  try  to  exert  a  pernicious 
influence  over  Dick,  and  so  wound  her  where  she  was 
most  vulnerable?  These  were  the  questions  that  were 
keeping  Margaret  awake. 


CHAPTER  V 

THERE  is  hardly  any  form  of  human  sorrow  or  anxiety 
which  the  sun  and  the  air  will  not  lighten  and  sweeten  in 
the  long  run;  and  Margaret's  anxiety  dissolved  with  the 
night's  mists,  as  the  sun  rose  radiant  over  the  hills.  Dick 
was  going  into  San  Francisco  with  the  review  of  a  popu- 
lar novel  which  he  had  written  for  the  newspaper  to 
which  he  was  now  to  be  a  regular  contributor,  at  a  fixed 
salary. 

Margaret  had  carefully  read  the  review  and  had  pro- 
nounced a  favorable  judgment  upon  it  and  was  enthusi- 
astically repeating  her  delight,  as  she  accompanied  him 
part  way  on  the  Tunnel  Road.  Not  a  cloud  marred  the 
fathomless  blue  of  the  sky  and  the  air  had  that  crisp 
tonic  quality  which  exhilarates  like  wine. 

"  Isn't  it  a  beautiful  day  ?  "  exclaimed  Margaret.  "  I 
am  so  glad  that  you  are  going  away  in  the  sunlight  instead 
of  the  fog.  I  try  my  best  not  to  be  superstitious,  but 
there  is  a  taint  in  my  blood  which  all  my  reason  can't 
purify.  I  like  to  begin  things  the  first  part  of  the  week, 
and  not  on  Friday,  and  I  like  all  new  undertakings  to 
have  the  baptism  of  the  sun,  not  the  rain.  This  is  good 
luck,  Dick.  You  are  going  to  make  us  all  very  proud  of 
you  and  you  are  going  to  be  very  happy  in  this  venture." 

He  thanked  her  for  her  good  wishes,  and  at  the  bend 
in  the  road  they  parted,  each  turning  more  than  once 
to  wave  a  final  farewell.  They  had  been  good  comrades, 


THE  TRELOARS  49 

this  brother  and  sister,  and  would  miss  each  other  sadly 
in  the  days  to  come. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  when  Dick  reached  the  office  of  the 
newspaper  which  had  promised  to  give  him  a  trial.  He 
went  at  once  to  see  the  editor,  Mr.  Roswell  Cressy,  a 
stout  short  man  of  enormous  girth,  with  a  large  round 
head  scantily  provided  with  hair,  and  twinkling  gray  eyes 
that  had  hard  work  to  look  over  his  broad  protruding 
cheeks.  He  had  a  livid  scar  across  his  forehead. 

"  Good  morning,  Treloar,"  he  said  in  a  suave  voice, 
as  he  turned  in  his  office  chair.  "  Take  a  seat.  You  have 
your  copy  ready,  I  see." 

"  Yes,  sir,  here  it  is,"  answered  Dick,  handing  him  the 
manuscript. 

Mr.  Cressy  began  looking  it  over  with  an  impassive 
countenance  which  changed  to  a  questionable  one,  after  he 
had  read  several  pages.  However,  he  said  nothing,  but 
continued  steadily  reading  to  the  end.  Then  he  laid  the 
manuscript  on  his  desk  and  looked  at  Dick  with  a  quizzi- 
cal expression,  his  mouth  puckered  up  as  if  he  were  about 
to  whistle,  his  eyes  half  shut. 

"  You  don't  like  it,  sir,"  said  Dick,  turning  very  red 
and  moving  uneasily  in  his  chair. 

"  Well,  to  be  frank  with  you,  Treloar,  I  don't." 

As  he  said  this,  Mr.  Cressy  looked  very  intently  at, 
Dick;  then,  cocking  one  leg  over  the  other,  clasping  his 
hands  about  his  knee  and  leaning  forward  in  his  chair, 
he  said  in  a  confidential  sort  of  way: 

"  Are  you  able  to  swallow  your  pills  without  chewing 
'em?" 

Dick  smiled,  and  answered :  "  I  think  I  can  take  my 
medicine  like  a  man  without  sputtering  over  it." 

"  All  right !  Then  you're  worth  talking  to,  otherwise, 
not.  Smoke  ?  Yes  ?  Well,  here's  a  good  cigar.  That'll 
gild  the  pill." 

He  lighted  a  cigar  for  himself,  tossed  his  match  on 
the  floor,  took  two  or  three  long  puffs,  then,  removing 
it  from  his  mouth  and  flinging  his  right  leg  over  the  arm 
of  his  chair,  he  continued : 


50  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Now,  I  am  going  to  talk  square  from  the  shoulder. 
There's  good  metal  in  you.  It  just  needs  hammering  into 
shape.  If  I  didn't  think  so,  I  wouldn't  waste  my  time  on 
you.  You  know  how  to  express  yourself.  That  is  un- 
common in  young  writers  and  women,  who  go  round  and 
round  a  subject  and  never  hit  the  center  of  it.  You've 
got  ideas,  and  that  is  uncommon,  too.  People  who 
haven't  ideas  fall  into  a  round  about  way  of  writing 
flippant  and  fluffy  things  that  we  put  into  the  woman's 
page.  But  you  are  able  to  write  for  men.  The  only 
trouble  with  you  is  that  you  are  altogether  too  high- 
brow. You  are  just  out  of  college,  where  you  have  been 
Platoing  and  Aristotling  with  your  peers,  and  you  don't 
know  yet  that  you  have  got  an  entirely  different  public 
to  deal  with.  You  have  written  for  men  who  own  their 
own  libraries,  and  for  the  most  part  only  read  the  head- 
lines of  the  daily  paper  or  look  at  the  market  reports. 
We  want  you  to  write  for  the  men  whose  chief  literary 
diet  is  the  newspaper,  who  let  Andy  Carnegie  build  their 
libraries  for  them  and  buy  their  books  for  them,  except 
a  few  they  pick  up  on  account  of  their  covers  and  their 
pictures  on  bargain  days  in  the  big  department  stores. 

"  These  are  the  men  that  make  the  newspaper  pay. 
They  don't  know  what  they  want  in  the  library  line,  but 
they  do  know  what  they  want  their  newspaper  to  give 
'em,  and  we  give  it  to  'em.  All  this  talk  about  educating 
and  elevating  the  public  through  the  newspaper  is  all 
poppycock.  They  don't  want  to  be  educated  and  ele- 
vated. It  isn't  comfortable.  Besides,  they've  got  all  the 
education  and  elevation  they  can  hold.  You  can't  put 
a  two-story  education  into  a  one-story  brain.  What 
they  do  want  is  to  be  interested,  excited,  amused,  and 
from  time  to  time  electrically  shocked  by  some  bully  old 
hair-raising  crime  or  scandal.  They  think  in  herds,  or 
rather  they  think  with  their  instincts  which  sometimes 
run  in  line  with  civilization  and  sometimes  with  savagery. 
Actors  and  public  speakers  will  tell  you  that  all  audiences 
laugh  and  cry  in  the  same  places  the  world  over.  The 


THE  TRELOARS  51 

great  thing1  is  to  know  what  will  make  them  laugh  and 
cry.  Now  that's  a  newspaper  man's  particular  business. 
There  is  one  thing  that  he  is  always  dead  sure  of, 
and  that  is  a  banal  curiosity  about  what's  going  on  in 
the  world  in  general,  and  his  neighbor's  back  yard  in 
particular.  In  fact,  journalism,  conducted  for  the  dollar, 
is  simply  gossip  on  a  colossal  scale,  spicily  dressed  up  for 
the  popular  taste." 

"  But  — "  interrupted  Dick. 

Mr.  Cressy  waved  his  hand  with  the  cigar  between  his 
fingers,  raised  his  voice  and  went  on: 

"  Yes,  I  know  just  what  you  are  going  to  say.  I 
thought  exactly  the  same  at  your  age,  when  I  had  my 
B.A.  degree  framed  to  hang  up  in  mother's  old-fashioned 
country  parlor,  and  like  a  new  Don  Quixote  went  out  to 
redress  the  wrongs  of  humanity.  See  that  scar  on  my 
forehead  ?  " 

He  tapped  his  brow  with  his  forefinger,  and  smiled 
knowingly  at  Dick.  "  I've  got  that  as  a  perpetual  sou- 
venir of  my  youthful  devotion  to  principle.  A  little  lower 
down  and  I'd  have  lost  my  left  eye.  That  gash  let  a  little 
sense  into  my  cranium.  I  learned  with  Saint  Paul  that 
there's  no  use  kicking  against  the  pricks.  Anyhow,  what 
particular  illumination  had  I  received  at  twenty-three 
with  which  to  enlighten  the  world?  I  was  a  canting, 
young  milk-sop  that  had  been  fed  on  heroic  principles  too 
big  for  me.  I  was  a  green  young  sucker  that  thought 
people  really  meant  what  they  said  when  they  talked  about 
the  glory  of  the  intellectual  life,  the  beauty  of  the  simple 
life,  the  joy  of  the  life  of  devotion  to  others ;  when  I  came 
to  look  into  the  thing,  everybody  seemed  to  take  it  for 
granted  on  the  strength  of  printer's  ink,  but  to  be  mak- 
ing a  damnably  strenuous  effort  to  go  in  for  the  contrary, 
that  is,  to  hold  on  to  all  the  hard  cash  they  could  get  and 
make  it  minister  to  their  pleasures.  Therefore,  there 
was  nothing  for  me  to  do  but  either  join  the  Salvation 
Army,  sing  '  there  ain't  no  flies  on  Jesus  '  (actually  heard 
that  sung  here  once)  and  drive  a  spavined  horse  around 


52  THE  TRELOARS 

to  pick  up  cast-off  finery  for  the  poor,  or  admit  that  I 
had  been  mistaken,  and  must  be  a  journalist  for  people 
as  they  are,  and  not  as  I  wanted  them  to  be,  or  thought 
they  really  were.  I  resolved  to  be  a  journalist;  decidedly 
preferring  an  automobile  to  a  spavined  horse,  and  a  sea- 
son ticket  to  the  opera  to  a  Salvationist  hymn.  I  own  two 
automobiles,  and  a  house  in  town  and  a  house  in  the  coun- 
try. I  had  worked  my  way  through  college,  and  when  I 
left,  had  to  start  my  journalistic  career  on  exactly 
seventy-five  cents.  I've  passed  many  a  summer  night 
on  a  bench  in  the  park,  because  I  couldn't  pay  room  rent." 

He  paused,  relighted  his  cigar,  his  eyes  twinkling  with 
self-satisfaction.  He  had  the  self-made  man's  pride  and 
delight  in  recalling  the  days  of  his  youthful  hardships, 
because  they  heightened  the  consciousness  of  his  triumph. 
He  puffed  vigorously  at  his  cigar  a  few  minutes  and  then 
went  on.  He  was  not  talking  to  Dick  now,  so  much  as 
to  himself.  He  was  enjoying  the  reminiscences  of  his 
astuteness  and  his  success. 

"  Young  man,"  he  continued,  "  I  owe  all  my  success 
in  life  to  the  fact  that  I  recognized  in  time  what  democ- 
racy is,  and  I  don't  mind  telling  you,  because  the  sooner 
you  find  it  out,  the  better.  Democracy  is  the  triumph  of 
mediocrity  and  bluff  in  the  name  of  the  majority.  It  is  a 
game  of  snatch  grab  in  which  the  man  with  the  strongest 
lungs,  the  biggest  fists,  the  broadest  shoulders  gets  the 
biggest  haul."  He  smiled,  coughed  slightly,  he  thought 
he  had  said  a  good  thing ;  but  Dick  was  too  sick  at  heart 
to  take  advantage  of  the  pause,  and  he  went  on :  "  The 
majority  not  only  thinks  that  it  is  the  voice  of  God,  but 
that  God  never  had  any  other  voice ;  and  that  is  why  it  is 
so  enormously  superstitious  about  the  miraculous  power 
of  legislation  and  of  political  parties.  It  believes  that 
the  sunshine  and  the  crops  and  the  salvation  or  ruin  of 
the  country  depend  upon  the  presidential  election. 
Hence  the  ordinary  man's  devotion  to  politics  when  he 
isn't  in  it  for  a  job.  That's  why  he  needs  what  he 
calls  an  organ,  the  newspaper,  to  sound  his  stops  for 


THE  TRELOARS  53 

him.  Now  I  don't  go  so  far  as  to  require  my  men  to 
resign  their  political  liberty  when  they  go  on  the  staff, 
as  a  great  many  managers  do.  I'll  never  ask  you,  for 
example,  how  you  cast  your  vote.  All  I  ask  of  you  is 
to  avoid  writing  anything  contrary  to  the  policy  of  the 
paper.  Now  to  come  to  the  point  in  question;  you've 
written  a  scathing  criticism,  and  by  the  way,  a  first- 
rate  criticism  of  a  trashy  novel;  but  that  book  happens 
to  be  published  by  a  big  firm  that  throws  some  two  or 
three  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  advertising  our  way 
every  year  or  two,  and  we  can't  afford  to  throw  it  back 
in  their  faces.  It's  not  only  impolitic,  it's  ungrateful." 

"  Then,"  blurted  out  Dick,  his  young  face  blazing  with 
indignation,  "  it  is  not  my  honest  opinions  you  want,  but 
the  repetition  of  ready-made  opinions  already  on  file." 

The  manager  laughed  in  a  good-natured  way  and  said : 

"  No,  not  exactly.  If  that  is  all  I  wanted,  I  could  go 
out  on  the  street  and  pick  up  the  first  fellow  I  met  who 
could  read  and  copy.  I  want  you  because,  as  I  told  you 
before,  I  think  there  is  good  stuff  in  you.  I  am  not  ex- 
actly an  ass,  and  if  I  hadn't  passed  through  my  trans- 
cendental period  when  I  wanted  to  shoot  at  the  stars  in- 
stead of  at  the  geese  in  the  pond  hard  by,  I  shouldn't  be 
trying  to  shorten  your  apprenticeship  at  the  same  ethereal 
archery.  The  truth  is,  that  out  of  all  that  batch  of  books 
I  sent  you  to  review,  you  picked  out  the  very  weakest  one 
as  a  text  for  a  mighty  fine  sermon  on  good  taste.  What 
we  do  when  we  get  hold  of  a  book  like  that  from  a  lib- 
erally advertising  firm  is  this:  We  repeat  the  essential 
parts  of  the  preface,  if  there  is  one,  or  the  notice  on  the 
cover,  written  either  by  the  firm  or  the  author  of  the 
book,  and  so  we  get  a  safe  conservative  little  puff  that 
is  satisfactory  all  round." 

"And  the  public?"  asked  Dick  hotly. 

"  The  public  ?  Man,  haven't  I  made  it  plain  to  you 
yet,  that  the  trash  was  exactly  what  the  public  wanted? 
You  might  as  well  criticise  its  babies.  Don't  you  sup- 
pose the  publisher  knows  his  public?  If  the  public 


54  THE  TRELOARS 

wanted  this  sort  of  thing,"  and  he  tapped  Dick's  manu- 
script energetically,  "  we'd  give  it  to  'em  by  the  whole- 
sale. It  is  not  we  newspaper  men  or  the  publishers  that 
are  the  molders  of  public  opinion;  it  is  we  who  are 
molded  by  it.  We  keep  our  finger  on  the  public  pulse. 
If  it  runs  to  a  dangerous  fever  heat,  we  try  to  reduce  it, 
if  it  falls  below  normal  we  stimulate  it.  That's  the  whole 
extent  of  our  influence.  The  '  best  seller'  exists  because 
of  the  feverish  desire  for  something  new.  To-day  is 
never  as  good  as  to-morrow  will  be,  to  the  vast  majority; 
though  for  the  most  part  it  turns  out  to  be  pretty  much  the 
same  old  story.  So  the  best  seller  goes  up  like  a  rocket 
and  comes  down  like  a  stick,  its  chief  merit  being  the 
dampness  of  its  pages  just  off  the  press.  It  is  the  answer 
to  the  girl's  question  at  the  telephone,  '  Is  there  anything 
new?'  You  and  I  were  taught  that  reading  is  an  exer- 
cise of  the  intelligence;  so  it  is  with  a  few  people  yet; 
but  remember  that  popular  education,  or  rather  the  popu- 
lar attempt  at  education  has  added  girls  and  boys  and 
the  average  woman  to  the  reading  class  and  they  take 
their  reading  either  as  a  narcotic  or  an  irritant.  Now 
if  you  could  write  that  class  of  readers  and  that  asinine 
state  of  mind  out  of  existence,  I'd  print  all  the  things 
that  you  want  to  write  about  it,  and  be  glad  to  do  it. 
But  I  know  that  it  can't  be  done,  so  we  must  provide  for 
it  just  as  we  provide  for  children's  toys.  It's  just  as 
legitimate  a  business  if  you  look  at  it  impartially.  That 
is  why  we  have  the  woman's  page  with  its  fashion  notes 
and  its  beauty  secrets,  written  by  the  office  boys  over  the 
name  of  some  popular  actress  who  gets  paid  for  the  use 
of  her  name.  That  is  why  we  have  two  columns  of  aids 
to  wounded  hearts  written  by  the  same  boys  over  some 
well  known  second-rate  novelist's  name,  who  does  not 
get  paid  for  it,  because  she  is  usually  dead.  In  short  we 
feed  the  public  with  the  pap  it  likes,  and  this  paper  of 
yours  is  '  caviar  to  the  general.'  Have  I  made  it  plain 
to  you  ?  " 

"  You  certainly  have,  sir,"  replied  Dick  with  bitter- 


THE  TRELOARS  55 

ness,  "  and  if  this  is  all  there  is  to  journalism,  I  have  no 
ambition  to  excel  in  it,  no  skill  to  put  at  its  service." 

"  O  come  now !  come  now  !  Don't  get  excited.  Don't 
get  discouraged.  We'll  let  you  ride  your  high  horse  once 
in  a  while,  if  you'll  only  get  off  and  walk  with  us  the  rest 
of  the  time.  I'll  go  over  this  article,  cut  out  what  re- 
lates to  the  novel,  and  run  it  in  as  a  criticism  on  popular 
taste  in  general,  and  see  how  the  public  takes  it.  Maybe 
nobody  will  read  it,  but  we  shall  have  made  our  sacrifice 
to  the  gods.  I  know  just  exactly  how  you  feel.  Been 
all  through  it  myself.  And  journalism  will  teach  you  a 
lot,  too.  You'll  learn  what  human  nature  really  is. 
There's  nothing  like  it  for  swing  and  go  in  the  heart  of 
things,  and  the  power  to  reflect  them  in  words.  There's 
something  else  I  want  you  to  do  for  me.  I  want  you  to 
write  up  the  stock  company  playing  at  the  Cort,  I  think. 
Here's  a  pass.  I  really  haven't  looked  to  see  what's  go- 
ing on  this  week,  but  write  a  good  racy  half-column." 

He  gave  the  ticket  to  Dick,  who  took  it  mechanically 
and  rose  from  the  chair.  For  a  half  minute  he  hesitated, 
as  if  he  were  ready  to  turn  his  back  on  the  whole  busi- 
ness. Mr.  Cressy  saw  the  hesitation  on  his  face  and 
smiled  cordially,  saying: 

"  Well,  you've  taken  your  medicine  like  a  man,  as  you 
said  you  would.  Some  young  fellows  in  your  place,  with 
more  conceit  than  brains,  would  have  kicked  over  the 
traces  and  lost  the  opportunity  of  their  lives.  I  con- 
gratulate you  on  your  good  sense." 

The  praise,  quite  undeserved  as  it  was  —  for  Dick  was 
inwardly  protesting  as  vigorously  as  he  could  —  had  the 
effect  desired.  Dick  put  the  ticket  into  his  pocket,  said 
"  good  morning "  as  cheerfully  as  he  could  and  strode 
out  of  the  office  to  have  it  out  with  himself. 

The  wind  was  blowing  rather  sharply,  and  as  Dick 
turned  a  corner,  it  seized  his  light  straw  hat  and  sent  it 
careering  across  the  street  to  his  extreme  irritation 
and  disgust.  He  was  not  much  given  to  swearing,  but 
he  muttered  an  oath  to  himself  as  he  ran  after  it,  feeling 


56  THE  TRELOARS 

himself  particularly  abused  by  this  unkind  little  familiar- 
ity following  so  closely  upon  the  heels  of  a  more  serious 
rebuff.  Just  as  he  caught  his  hat,  he  noticed  a  car, 
marked  for  the  Golden  Gate  Park,  approaching,  and  he 
got  into  it  with  no  particular  motive  in  view  except  to 
be  going  somewhere  and  going  as  quickly  as  possible. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  keener  disappointment  to  an  ardent 
young  mind  than  to  have  its  generous  enthusiasms  ex- 
posed to  the  brutally  cynical  contempt  of  disillusioned  age 
and  experience.  There  is  no  possible  retort,  for  age  is 
always  able  to  say:  "I  thought  just  as  you  do  in  my 
youth.  You  will  come  to  think  as  I  do  when  years  ripen 
your  judgment."  The  reply  only  adds  exasperation  to 
the  inner  revolt.  Dick  was  saying  to  himself  that  never, 
no  matter  how  old  he  grew,  no  matter  what  temptations 
came  to  him,  would  he  prostitute  his  opinions  to  get  on 
in  the  world.  Better  get  out  of  the  world  than  live  in 
it  beggared  of  all  that  makes  life  worth  living.  To  sacri- 
fice one's  personality  to  an  ignoble  cause,  to  live  as  a 
mouthpiece  for  other  men's  breath,  to  be  a  mere  echo 
of  the  voice  of  the  multitude ;  no  —  never  would  he  con- 
sent to  that.  Emerson's  brave  lines  came  into  his  mind : 

"O  noble  heart,  accept 

With  equal  thanks  the  talent  and  disgrace; 

The  marble  town  unwept 

Nourish  thy  virtue  in  a  private  place, 

Think  not  that  unattended 

By   heavenly   powers   thou   steal'st   to   solitude, 

Nor  yet  on  earth  all  unbefriended." 

The  car  sped  on  rapidly.  Dick  was  conscious  of  noth- 
ing but  the  motion  and  a  vague  impression  of  a  wall  of 
houses  on  either  side  of  him,  with  sudden  steep  ascents 
and  declines,  so  that  he  seemed  to  have  been  riding  but 
a  few  minutes  when  the  car  reached  its  terminus.  En- 
tering the  park,  he  turned  away  from  the  most  frequented 
paths  and  sought  the  solitary  places.  An  aged  banker 
had  once  said  to  him,  "  Always  count  on  failure,  when 
you  begin  a  new  venture.  In  that  case  you  know  what 


THE  TRELOARS  57 

to  do,  and  you  won't  be  hopelessly  discouraged."  But 
Dick  had  never  for  a  moment  anticipated  failure  in  jour- 
nalism. He  had  been  writing  for  newspapers  at  intervals 
since  he  was  sixteen,  and  he  never  had  had  an  article  re- 
jected, although  he  had  never  received  a  penny  for  his 
contributions.  His  reward  came  to  him  in  the  shape  of  a 
local  reputation  for  cleverness,  which  finally  had  secured 
him  a  position  on  a  popular  daily  paper.  It  had  never 
occurred  to  him  that  in  order  to  be  valuable  to  the  paper 
he  would  be  expected  to  merge  his  personality  into  that 
of  the  manager,  echo  his  tastes  and  interests,  and  ser- 
vilely follow  what  was  called  "  the  policy  of  the  paper." 
He  thought  his  value  to  it  lay  in  his  own  individuality. 

On  Dick's  return  from  the  park,  he  felt  a  strong  temp- 
tation to  go  home,  so  strong,  in  fact,  that  he  actually 
turned  towards  the  ferry  and  was  a  long  way  down  Mar- 
ket Street  before  he  realized  the  absurdity  of  the  situa- 
tion. Was  he  a  baby  still,  that  he  must  flee  to  his  sister 
with  every  hurt,  like  a  child  that  has  stumbled,  and  runs 
crying  to  its  mother  to  have  the  sting  of  the  bruise  taken 
out  with  a  kiss  ?  Nonsense !  He  was  a  man,  not  a  child, 
but  he  realized  that  the  child  does  not  die  in  a  man  with 
his  growth.  It  still  persists  in  the  need  to  be  amused, 
interested,  flattered  and  loved;  and  it  has  a  horror  of 
ennui  and  isolation.  He  turned  round,  retracing  his 
steps.  The  street  was  filled  with  crowds  hurrying  to 
catch  the  ferry.  Not  a  familiar  face  in  all  that  throng. 
The  strange  crowd  made  him  feel  very  lonesome.  He 
had  no  home  to  go  to,  yet,  in  San  Francisco,  and  he  re- 
membered Mr.  Cressy's  advice  about  getting  a  boarding 
place  among  the  people  who  represent  the  majority.  It 
struck  him  as  rather  singular  that  both  Max  Gietmann 
and  Cressy  should  have  made  the  same  criticism  of  de- 
mocracies in  almost  the  same  words;  but  each  had  ar- 
rived at  opposite  conclusions  regarding  the  proper  atti- 
tude towards  the  majority.  Max  was  for  reducing  it  to 
a  helpless  machine,  existing  only  to  serve  the  purposes  of 
a  few  supreme  egotists;  Cressy  was  for  humoring  its 


58  THE  TRELOARS 

weaknesses  and  vices,  in  order  to  profit  by  them.  He 
hardly  knew  which  attitude  was  more  detestable  or  more 
dangerous  —  harsh  tyranny  or  cringing  flattery. 

Dick  was  finally  recalled  to  action  by  remembering  that 
he  was  to  report  a  play,  and  he  took  his  ticket  out  of  his 
pocket  and  looked  at  it.  The  play  was  "  Fanchon,  the 
Cricket"  a  popular  adaptation  of  George  Sand's  attrac- 
tive little  story,  La  petite  Fadette.  He  remembered  hav- 
ing read  the  novel  in  the  second  semester  of  his  French 
course  at  the  university.  He  recalled  vividly  the  im- 
pression of  freshness  and  wholesomeness  which  the  story 
had  made  upon  him,  and  his  professor's  special  interest 
in  the  introduction  in  which  George  Sand  gives  her  in- 
terpretation of  the  artist's  task,  which  is  "  to  extol  gentle- 
ness, confidence,  friendship,  and  thus  to  recall  to  hard- 
ened or  discouraged  men  the  fact  that  pure  morals,  tender 
sentiments  and  primitive  justice  are  still  in  the  world,  or 
may  be  in  it."  It  seemed  to  him  a  remarkable  coincidence 
that  the  first  play  given  him  to  report  should  be  one  that 
confirmed  the  theories  which  he  had  been  advocating; 
and  his  spirits  rose  considerably,  remembering  the  sup- 
port he  had  in  the  example  of  the  world's  greatest 
geniuses.  It  gave  him  a  faith  in  majorities  that  sent  him 
to  hunting  a  room  where  he  could  come  closer  to  the  life 
of  the  people,  and  see  them  at  first  hand. 


CHAPTER  VI 

PROMPTLY  at  a  quarter  past  eight,  the  curtain  rose  in 
the  pretty  comfortable  little  theater  in  which  the  San 
Francisco  Stock  Company  was  playing  through  the  sum- 
mer season  at  popular  prices.  Dick  had  a  good  seat  well 
up  in  front,  where  he  could  observe  the  stage  admirably. 
His  heart  was  beating  a  little  faster  than  ordinary  in  a 
sort  of  hostile  excitement,  for  he  was  anticipating  that 
the  play  might  be  presented  as  a  coarse  burlesque  —  the 
finer  sentiment  in  it  utterly  destroyed  for  the  sake  of  em- 


THE  TRELOARS  59 

phasizing  the  grotesque  elements  which  are  sure  to  ex- 
cite applause  and  laughter.  Let  them  do  that  at  their 
peril ! 

"  A  chield's  amang  you  taking  notes, 
And,  faith,  he'll  prent  it." 

That  is,  if  his  chief,  Mr.  Cressy,  will  let  him.  He  smiled 
rather  sarcastically  as  he  added  this  amendment,  and 
glanced  at  the  cast  in  the  play-bill. 

"  Fanchon,  the  Cricket  —  Nita  Normand."  The  name 
was  entirely  new  to  him;  and  woe  to  her  if  she  played 
her  part  badly !  She  was  the  only  character  about  whom 
he  was  curious.  Ah!  There  she  was;  the  house  was 
greeting  her  with  loud  applause.  Dick  was  watching  her 
eagerly.  Amidst  the  disordered  tangle  of  reddish  brown 
hair,  he  noted  a  sweet  oval  face  alive  with  intelligence. 
The  coarse,  grotesque  dress  partly  concealed  the  grace  of 
the  lithe  young  figure;  but  enough  of  its  quickness  and 
beauty  was  revealed  to  give  promise  of  the  transformation 
that  was  to  follow.  Her  voice  was  peculiarly  sweet  and 
penetrating,  filling  the  theater  without  effort.  Its  tones 
fell  upon  Dick's  ears  like  a  delicious  harmony,  putting 
him  in  tune  with  the  universe.  His  face  brightened,  he 
leaned  forward,  his  gaze  steadily  fixed  upon  her,  an  in- 
voluntary smile  playing  about  his  lips.  With  what  ex- 
quisite understanding  she  was  bringing  out  all  the  deli- 
cate suggestiveness  of  the  beautiful  little  idyll  —  the  bit- 
ter-sweet, wild,  natural  strength  of  profound  feeling  and 
quick  insight,  unschooled  by  conventions  —  the  fine  sav- 
age courage  of  a  big  heart  and  brain  taunted  and  tor- 
tured by  the  scorn  and  hatred  of  the  village  crowd,  far 
below  her  in  natural  gifts.  What  a  queen  she  was  among 
them,  even  in  her  rags  and  her  shaggy  wind-blown  hair ! 
What  depths  of  pain  and  degradation  she  sounded,  only 
to  rise,  high  above  it  all.  When  she  came  back,  at  the 
end  of  the  play,  radiantly  transformed  —  the  latent  sweet- 
ness and  gentleness  of  her  nature  set  free  without  any 
loss  of  the  courage  and  firmness,  which  made  its  strength, 


60  THE  TRELOARS 

Dick  felt  that  he  was  in  the  presence  of  a  great  actress. 
What  subtle  sympathy  and  deep  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart  were  necessary  for  so  finished  an  interpretation. 
His  lips  quivered  with  excitement  and  his  eyes  blurred 
a  little  in  his  intense  joy  in  her  beautiful  work.  She  had 
given  him  completely  back  his  wavering  faith  in  his  cen- 
tury. He  was  not  alone ;  she  repeopled  his  world. 

When  the  curtain  went  down  on  the  final  response  to  the 
eager  applause  of  the  spectators,  Dick  rose  from  his  seat, 
and  hurried  towards  the  green-room.  He  must  see  Nita 
Normand.  He  must  tell  her  that  her  acting  was  like  a 
benediction  to  him,  and  how  grateful  he  was  for  it. 

"O  Dick!" 

Dick  turned  his  head  as  he  heard  his  named  called  and 
saw  Max  Gietmann  pushing  his  way  towards  him. 

"  Hello,  Max,  is  that  you  ?  Wasn't  it  magnificent ! 
I've  got  to  see  her  and  tell  her  so.  To  go  away  coolly 
after  a  treat  like  that  is  to  prove  that  you  don't  know  a 
good  thing  when  you  see  it,  nor  how  to  be  thankful  for 
it." 

"  Glad  to  hear  you  talk  like  that,  Dick.  I  was  just 
going  to  propose  introducing  you." 

"  Do  you  know  her  ?  "  asked  Dick,  very  much  amazed. 

"  Yes,  it  was  she  who  gave  me  my  pass  to  the  theater, 
and  invited  me  to  see  her  play." 

"  Officially  ?     I  mean  as  a  critic  ?  " 

"  O,  no,  quite  unofficially,  as  a  friend ;  but  I  shall  be 
very  glad,  if  you  can  do  something  to  boost  her,  in  the 
shape  of  a  good  article.  She  has  been  on  the  stage  five 
years,  and  she  hasn't  got  the  recognition  that  she  de- 
serves." 

"  I'll  be  glad  to  do  anything  in  the  world  that  I  can  for 
her." 

Dick  spoke  as  confidently  as  if  he  had  the  critical  opin- 
ion of  the  world  at  the  point  of  his  pen. 

"  Look  out,  Dick,  this  entrance  is  rather  low.  You'll 
have  to  stoop,  if  you  don't  want  to  knock  the  top  of  your 
head,"  called  out  Max,  as  he  pulled  aside  a  heavy  green 


THE  TRELOARS  61 

curtain  that  concealed  a  passage  leading  to  the  back  of  the 
stage.  He  preceded  Dick  into  the  green-room.  Giving 
his  card  to  one  of  the  actors  in  the  men's  dressing  room, 
he  asked  him  to  be  kind  enough  to  give  it  to  Miss  Nor- 
mand  with  the  request  to  see  her.  In  a  few  moments  the 
actor  returned,  and  asked  Max  and  Dick  to  accompany 
him  to  the  other  side  of  the  green  room,  occupied  by  the 
women.  Dick's  heart  beat  faster  and  faster  as  he  walked 
through  the  narrow  passage-way  and  he  stumbled  awk- 
wardly over  some  of  the  properties  as  he  approached  the 
women's  dressing  room.  Nita  came  to  the  door,  still  in 
the  garb  of  the  last  scene,  a  soft  white  muslin  dress  with 
lace  flounces.  She  had  not  yet  removed  the  exaggerated 
coloring  of  the  stage,  but  Dick  was  oblivious  to  it.  He  was 
under  the  spell  of  her  acting.  He  saw  nothing  but  the  in- 
carnation of  a  beautiful  original  character  as  George  Sand 
had  conceived  it,  and  when  Nita,  with  a  smile  and  a  bow  of 
acknowledgment  of  his  presence,  turned  to  Max,  holding 
out  her  two  hands  in  an  impulsive  gesture  of  unrestrained 
gladness,  it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  always  known  her, 
and  that  he  had  no  need  whatever  of  the  formal  introduc- 
tion that  followed,  and  he  said  so. 

"  It  seems  so  impertinently  superfluous  to  be  intro- 
duced to  you,"  he  exclaimed,  pressing  fervently  the  small 
hand  which  she  extended  to  him.  "  I  think  that  we  ought 
to  be  saying  to  each  other :  *  Don't  you  remember  ? '  of 
something  that  we  have  seen,  or  read,  or  enjoyed  to- 
gether." 

"  How  lovely  of  you  to  say  that,"  she  replied  with  that 
peculiarly  captivating  quality  in  her  voice  that  made  its 
intonations  fall  upon  the  ear  like  a  caress.  "  I  often  have 
that  feeling  towards  persons  whom  I  meet  for  the  first 
time."  Then  she  hesitated,  contradicting  herself  with  a 
negative  toss  of  her  head,  as  she  added :  "  No,  that  is  not 
quite  true.  I  will  not  say  often.  I  mean  that  I  some- 
times have  that  feeling,  and  it  is  delightful." 

"  Do  you  have  it  now  ? "  Dick  asked,  his  handsome 
face  glowing  with  the  admiration  he  could  not  conceal. 
She  looked  at  him  and  smiled. 


62  THE  TRELOARS 

"Yes,  I  do.     Isn't  it  delightful?" 

"  What  a  delicious  voice  you  have !  " 

"  Now,  that  will  do,"  interrupted  Max.  "  I  am  not 
going  to  let  you  two  waste  your  time  cooing  at  each  other 
in  such  unheavenly  surroundings  when  I  know  where  we 
can  find  a  pleasant  place  and  something  to  eat." 

"  At  Boyson's  in  the  next  block  ?  "  asked  Nita. 

"Yes,  it's  all  right,  isn't  it?" 

"  Charming !  Just  wait  for  me  outside  the  door,  will 
you  ?  I've  only  to  put  on  a  street  dress  and  a  street  face. 
It  won't  take  me  fifteen  minutes." 

"  How  did  you  get  acquainted  with  her,  Max  ?  "  asked 
Dick  when  they  had  reached  the  appointed  place. 

"  That's  a  short  story,  hardly  worth  the  telling.  I  am 
really  not  very  well  acquainted  with  her,  as  this  is  only 
the  third  time  that  I  have  seen  her.  I  first  met  her  in 
France,  about  five  years  ago.  She  was  having  some  little 
difficulty  on  account  of  not  understanding  the  language. 
I  was  able  to  help  her  out,  that's  all.  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  it  till  the  other  night  —  that  night  I  was  at  your 
house.  The  company  had  been  playing  in  Oakland  and 
we  all  came  over  to  San  Francisco  in  the  same  boat.  She 
recognized  me  in  a  moment  and  came  up  and  spoke  to  me. 
I  should  never  have  known  her.  She  must  have  a  won- 
derful memory  for  faces." 

"  I  think  she  is  wonderful  in  every  way,"  said  Dick. 
"  Why,  Max,  it  takes  nothing  short  of  genius  to  interpret 
a  character  like  Fanchon's  in  the  way  in  which  she  did  it 
to-night.  Don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

"  O,  I  don't  know,"  answered  Max  carelessly. 
"  Women  have  a  sort  of  subtle  intuitive  way  of  feeling 
situations  and  characters;  but  they  can't  for  the  life  of 
them  tell  the  reason  why.  Now,  it  is  my  opinion  that 
genius  knows  what  it  is  doing.  It  is  reason,  as  well  as 
intuition  and  imagination.  There  are  plenty  of  people 
entirely  reasonable,  and  plenty  who  have  a  good  deal  of 
imagination,  but  the  combination  of  the  two  is  rare,  and 
when  we  get  it  we  call  it  genius.  But  here  she  comes. 


THE  TRELOARS  63 

We'll  ask  her  to  explain  why  she  plays  Fanchon  as  she 
does." 

Nita  wore  a  pretty,  stylishly  cut,  silver  gray  suit  and  a 
broad  brimmed,  gray  hat,  the  crown  of  which  was  en- 
circled by  graceful  ostrich  plumes  of  the  natural  color. 
She  had  removed  the  rouge  from  her  cheeks  and  her  face 
looked  sweeter  and  more  delicate  for  the  want  of  it. 
There  was  absolutely  no  affectation  or  vulgarity  either 
in  her  manner  or  appearance.  She  smiled  prettily  as  she 
joined  the  young  men,  saying:  "  I  haven't  kept  you  wait- 
ing long,  have  I  ?  " 

"  No,  you  have  kept  your  word  in  a  very  business-like, 
unwomanly  way,"  said  Max.  "  And  now,  you  are  going 
to  have  a  chance  to  prove  yourself  a  genius.  I  did  not 
tell  you  that  Mr.  Treloar  is  the  dramatic  critic  of  one  of 
the  leading  dailies  in  town,  and  that  you  are  going  to  be 
written  up  for  to-morrow's  edition.  Now  get  your  wits 
together,  and  we  shall  interview  you  in  fine  shape."  . 

"  Before  I've  had  anything  to  eat?  That  isn't  fair.  I 
can't  think  of  anything  just  now  but  a  soft-shelled  crab 
and  a  bowl  of  salad.  Are  you  fond  of  salads,  Mr. 
Treloar?" 

"  Very ! "  answered  Dick,  determined  immediately  to 
be  fond  of  anything  she  liked. 

"  Then  you  will  like  the  delicious  salads  they  make  at 
Boyson's.  They  rub  your  bowl  with  a  clove  of  garlic,  be- 
fore putting  in  the  lettuce  and  other  things,  and  it  gives 
you  just  the  suggestion  of  an  appetizing  savor  without 
vulgarizing  the  salad." 

"  Vulgarizing  the  salad ! "  repeated  Max  with  a  snort. 
"  Did  you  ever  hear  of  that,  Dick  ?  " 

"  Yes,  it  expresses  exactly  the  difference  between 
smothering  your  salad  in  garlic,  and  subjecting  your  garlic 
to  the  salad  —  the  refined  on  top,  the  coarse  underneath, 
according  to  your  own  ideas  of  the  fitness  of  things, 
Max." 

"  Madame,  your  reputation  is  made,"  said  Max. 
"  You  have  nothing  to  fear  from  the  dramatic  critic." 


64  THE  TRELOARS 

"  I  hope  not,"  answered  Nita,  looking  at  Dick  with  the 
complacency  of  a  woman  conscious  of  pleasing.  "  Then 
you  really  liked  my  playing  ?  " 

"  Liked  it !  "  echoed  Dick  with  enthusiasm.  "  That  is 
much  too  mild  a  word  for  it.  I  never  saw  anything  so 
good.  I  never  expect  to  see  anything  better.  I  can't 
understand  how  you  can  recreate  Fanchon  on  the  meagre 
lines  of  the  play  without  having  gone  directly  to  the 
original  for  a  masterly  study  of  the  character ;  and  even 
then,  it  seems  to  me  that  it  requires  uncommonly  good 
taste  to  sacrifice  the  noisy  and  easy  success  of  low  comedy 
to  which  the  character  might  readily  lend  itself,  for  the 
quieter  and  correcter  applause  of  the  judicious." 

"  I  am  so  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,"  said  Nita,  involun- 
tarily putting  her  hand  on  Dick's  arm,  an  impulsive  and 
familiar  gesture  peculiar  to  her.  Dick  had  the  hardest 
work  in  the  world  to  control  his  desire  to  close  his  own 
hand  over  hers  and  keep  it  a  prisoner.  "  I  had  a  long 
argument  with  the  manager  over  that  very  point.  He 
wished  me  to  play  the  part  in  such  a  way  as  to  catch  the 
gallery;  but  I  was  obstinate,  and  at  last  won  him  over  to 
my  way  of  thinking  about  it.  In  my  opinion,  the  whole 
value  and  beauty  of  the  play  consists  in  showing  the  final 
triumph  of  a  remarkably  gifted  nature  over  all  the  ob- 
stacles that  retard  its  development.  And  my  problem 
is  to  show  her  unusual  intelligence  and  spirituality,  even 
under  the  mask  of  grotesqueness  and  malice;  otherwise 
the  end  does  not  harmonize  with  the  beginning,  and  there 
are  two  Fanchons  instead  of  one." 

"  Yes,  you  brought  that  out  admirably,  and  then  —  O, 
is  this  the  place  ?  "  asked  Dick,  suddenly  interrupting  him- 
self, for  Max  had  stepped  ahead  and  was  opening  the 
door  of  a  modest  looking  hotel. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Nita.  "  This  is  Boyson's.  It  doesn't 
look  so  promising  from  the  outside,  and  it  is  not  ultra- 
fashionable,  you  know;  but  there's  the  cosiest  little  din- 
ing-room on  the  third  floor.  You  shall  see." 

He   did  see  it  —  a  softly  lighted,   delicately  colored, 


THE  TRELOARS  65 

scrupulously  clean  room,  with  green  ferns  about  it,  and 
growing  flowers. 

"  What  I  particularly  like  here  along  with  the  excellent 
salads  and  sea  food,"  said  Nita,  leading  the  way  to  one 
of  the  tables  in  an  alcove,  "  is  that  you  aren't  perpetually 
intruding  upon  yourself  by  being  multiplied  in  a  set  of 
wall  mirrors.  I  hope  you  are  both  hungry,"  she  went 
on,  seating  herself  and  taking  off  her  gloves. 

Dick,  who  had  eaten  heartily  late  in  the  afternoon,  was 
not  in  the  least  hungry ;  but  he  felt  that  if  it  were  neces- 
sary to  keep  her  in  countenance  by  a  show  of  hunger,  he 
was  manfully  prepared  to  do  it,  so  he  ordered  more  than 
he  wanted.  Max,  who  was  not  in  so  amiably  compliant 
a  humor,  contented  himself  with  a  much  smaller  order, 
against  which  Nita  protested  in  vain. 

"  Do  you  find  him  a  very  stubborn  person  ?  "  she  asked 
Dick,  as  she  dropped  two  lumps  of  sugar  into  her  coffee. 

"  He  knows  how  to  hang  on  to  his  opinions,"  replied 
Dick. 

"  Which  is  exactly  what  you  seem  to  be  able  to  do, 
also,"  said  Max,  addressing  Nita,  "  if  one  may  judge 
from  what  you  say  about  your  argument  with  the  man- 
ager. By  the  way,  don't  forget  that  we  were  to  interview 
you,  and  here's  the  first  question.  What  particular  rea- 
son have  you  for  preferring  your  own  interpretation  of 
Fanchon  to  that  of  your  manager,  besides  its  being  your 
own?" 

"  Because  it  is  the  true  one,  as  George  Sand  conceived 
it,  and  because  the  comedian's  art  is  not  to  raise  a  mean- 
ingless laugh,  but  a  laugh  that  has  a  meaning  behind  it. 
Take  Moliere's  comedies,  for  example.  There  is  not 
one  of  them  that  is  not  a  profound  criticism  of  the 
foibles  and  vices  of  humanity,  and  the  laughter  they  ex- 
cite is  good  for  the  soul.  Doesn't  Shakespeare  put  the 
keenest  lashes  of  his  wit  into  the  mouths  of  his  fools 
and  clowns?  To  reduce  good  comedy  to  a  farce  by 
merely  playing  the  fool  and  clown  by  a  grotesque  make- 
up and  hiccoughing,  staggering,  and  tumbling  about,  sim- 


66  THE  TRELOARS 

ply  to  raise  a  loud  laugh  is  to  degrade  it  to  the  level  of 
the  gutter;  and,  honestly,  I'd  rather  sweep  street-cross- 
ings for  a  living  than  do  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  Bravo !  bravo !  "  cried  Dick.  "  Come,  Max,  isn't 
that  giving  a  reason  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that  sounds  something  like  a  reason." 

Nita  looked  at  each  of  them  curiously  and  asked 
abruptly : 

"  Did  you  think  I  couldn't  give  a  reason  for  my  play- 
ing?" 

"  I  wasn't  sure,"  said  Max,  bluntly. 

"  I  was  sure  you  could,"  said  Dick,  confidently. 

"  Thank  you,  Mr.  Treloar.  I  see  that  I  am  not  to  ex- 
pect any  compliments  from  Mr.  Gietmann.  Evidently 
he  belongs  to  the  school  of  thinkers  who  believe  that  a 
woman  has  no  right  to  a  head  unless  there  is  nothing  in 
it." 

"  Your  much  praised  Moliere  was  not  very  far  from 
that  opinion  when  he  said  that  if  a  woman  knows  how 
to  mend  her  husband's  trousers  and  cook  his  dinner,  she 
has  all  in  her  head  that  is  necessary,"  retorted  Max. 

"  But  I  never  said  that  Moliere  is  infallible.  However, 
I  am  not  going  to  thrash  out  that  old  question.  It  has 
been  pro'd  and  con'd  until  there  is  not  a  shred  of  it  left 
untouched.  But  what  I  should  like  to  make  clear  is  the 
essence  of  what  I  said  to  you  the  other  night.  I  try  to 
put  into  my  playing  of  Fanchon  something  encouraging 
to  women  who  may  feel  discouraged.  What  we  women 
need  is  not  political  emancipation ;  it  is  emancipation  from 
ourselves,  our  weakness,  our  servility,  our  pitiful  de- 
pendence on  public  opinion,  our  incapacity  to  stand  alone, 
our  puerile  hunger  for  admiration  of  this  poor  flesh  of 
ours,  our  deplorable  inconsistency.  And  I  know  how 
hard  it  is  to  rid  ourselves  of  all  these  things,  because 
didn't  I,  myself,  stand  two  or  three  minutes  longer  at 
the  mirror  to-night  just  because  I  was  going  to  dine  with 
you  two  gentlemen?  Now,  what  do  you  think  of  me, 
Mr.  Treloar?" 


THE  TRELOARS  67 

tl  That  you  are  the  most  charming  woman  I  ever  met." 

"  Now,  don't  be  proud  of  that !  "  protested  Max ;  "  you 
forced  his  hand  and  now  it  is  your  turn  to  say  to  me: 
'  Isn't  he  a  dear  ? '  That's  the  correct  epithet,  I  believe, 
for  everything  just  now  from  a  poodle  dog  to  an  Apollo. 
Just  where  you  come  in  between  them,  Dick,  I  don't  ex- 
actly know." 

"Is  he  always  so  satirical,  Mr.  Treloar?". 

"  I  don't  know.  I  haven't  seen  much  of  him  since 
he  came  back  from  Europe,  but  before  he  went  away, 
he  himself  was  a  ' dear'  I  think  his  satire  lies  only  on 
the  end  of  his  tongue,  and  that  he's  all  right  deeper 
down." 

"  I  hope  so,"  said  Nita,  "  for  being  satirical  is  not  be- 
ing a  '  dear.'  But  if  it  isn't  being  impertinent,  I  should 
like  to  know  what  particularly  bitter  experience  has  gone 
to  the  undearing  of  him,  because  when  I  met  him  abroad, 
he  really  was  a  dear  fellow."  Here  Nita  put  her  hand 
affectionately  upon  his  arm,  and  looked  up  at  him  from 
beneath  the  broad  brim  of  her  hat  with  a  warmth  of  ex- 
pression that  sent  a  strange  little  chill  to  Dick's  heart. 
Could  there  be  any  secret  romance  between  these  two? 
But  Max  looked  so  unmoved  that  Dick  felt  reassured; 
besides  she  never  would  be  so  tactless  as  to  allude  to  any 
bitter  experience  of  his  in  which  she  had  a  part. 

"  No,  no ! "  said  Max,  straightening  himself  up  in  his 
chair  and  looking  at  Nita  with  feigned  pomposity.  "  It 
is  not  I  who  am  to  be  interviewed.  It  is  you  who  are  to 
submit  to  that  pleasing  experience  for  the  benefit  of  the 
dramatic  critic.  It  is,  of  course,  his  particular  business 
to  interview  you,  but  he  has  passed  into  that  rosy  myopic 
state  of  admiration  which  annihilates  criticism,  and  the 
duty  falls  to  me.  I  have  some  more  questions  to  ask 
you."  He  paused  a  moment,  drank  his  wine,  and  pushed 
the  empty  glass  aside. 

"  First  of  all,  what  I  wish  to  know  is  this.  If  you,  who 
play  Fanchon  with  so  much  understanding,  fall  into  what 
you  call  pitiful  inconsistencies,  how  can  you  expect  your 


68  THE  TRELOARS 

playing  to  do  any  earthly  good  to  your  weaker  sisters?  " 

"  I  do  not  admit  that  they  are  weaker  than  I ;  neither 
do  I  admit  that  we  are  entirely  uninfluenced  by  recog- 
nizing the  strength  which  we  cannot  always  imitate.  The 
very  recognition  of  it  creates  admiration  and  the  desire 
to  imitate  it,  which  under  certain  conditions  may  be  quite 
possible.  That  I  am  weak  to-day,  does  not  argue  that  I 
shall  be  weak  to-morrow.  As  for  my  own  inconsistency, 
it  isn't  everybody  that  I  should  think  it  worth  while  to 
please." 

«  Why  should  you  think  that  you  would  please  us  in 
this  particular  way  ?  "  went  on  Max,  ruthlessly. 

"  Because  you  are  men,  and  a  man's  judgment  of  a 
woman  is  made,  at  least  nine-tenths  of  it,  by  the  eye." 
V      "  Well,   that's   all   right,"   answered   Max.     "  Nature 
certainly  knows  what  she's  about,  when  she  makes  us 
love  beauty." 

"Certainly!  I  am  not  quarreling  with  the  eye- judg- 
ments. I  am  only  answering  your  question  by  stating  a 
fact.  But  if  you  will  pardon  me  the  suggestion  I  think 
we  are  straying  away  from  Fanchon,  and  I  have  not  yet 
said  all  that  I  wished  to  say  about  her.  Her  strength 
to  herself  is  not  her  beauty,  but  her  intelligence.  Her 
beauty  relates  her  to  her  kind,  and  is  the  source  of  much 
of  her  emotional  happiness ;  but  her  intellect  saves  her  to 
J  herself  —  makes  an  impregnable  fortress  for  her  against 
all  the  assaults  of  fortune.  It  gives  her  that  wonderful 
elasticity  and  power  of  recovery  and  self-renewal  which 
George  Sand  herself  possessed  to  such  an  extraordinary 
degree.  She  recognizes  in  a  regal  way,  what  not  one 
woman  in  ten  thousand  knows  —  namely,  that  no  real 
harm  can  come  to  her  except  through  herself.  To  know 
that  is  real  emancipation." 

"Of  course,  but  we  men  are  not  at  all  interested  in 
such  an  emancipation.  The  fact  is,  that  the  more  a 
woman  intellectualizes  herself,  the  less  attractive  and 
interesting  to  us  she  becomes,  unless  she  has  the  knack 
of  hiding  her  head  in  her  heart." 


THE  TRELOARS  69 

"  Excuse  me,  Max,  but  I  can't  agree  with  you  there," 
interrupted  Dick.  "  The  woman  who  has  meant  more  to 
me  than  anybody  else  in  the  world  has  been  also  the  most 
intellectual  woman  I  know* — the  woman  with  whom  I 
could  share  every  thought  I  had,  and  who  could  stimu- 
late me  to  thinking  with  a  wit  far  quicker  than  my  own." 

"  You  mean  your  sister,  Margaret,"  exclaimed  Max, 
and  a  dull  red  flamed  into  his  swarthy  cheeks.  "  She 
only  confirms  what  I  say.  She  radiates  an  atmosphere 
of  love,  so  that  you  never  bother  your  head  about  whether 
she  can  think  or  not." 

Dick  looked  intently  at  Max  and  it  came  over  him  in  a 
sudden  flash  that  Max  loved  his  sister.  But  the  thought 
was  not  pleasing  to  him.  He  colored  deeply  and  an- 
swered :  "  Perhaps  you  are  right." 

"  I  know  I  am,"  answered  Max,  taking  out  his  watch 
and  looking  at  it.  "  Do  you  people  know  that  it  is 
nearly  two  o'clock?  If  you  have  that  article  to  write, 
Dick,  you  ought  to  set  about  it." 

"  Is  it  really  as  late  as  that  ? "  said  Nita,  rising. 
"  Then  it  is  time  for  us  all  to  go  home ;  but  we  shall  meet 
again  soon,  shan't  we  ?  " 

"  We  certainly  shall,"  replied  Dick  with  enthusiasm. 

The  two  young  men  accompanied  Nita  to  her  lodging, 
and  when  they  had  bidden  her  good-by,  and  were  alone  in 
the  street,  Max  laid  his  hand  affectionately  on  Dick's 
shoulder,  saying: 

"  Now,  look  here,  old  man,  I  want  to  tell  you  some- 
thing. Nita  Normand  is  a  very  fascinating  woman." 

"  That's  not  to  her  discredit,"  interrupted  Dick 
quickly. 

"  No,  it  isn't,  and  I  know  nothing  about  her  that  dis- 
credits her  in  my  eyes,"  answered  Max  quietly.  "  But 
what  I  want  to  say  to  you  is  this:  The  man  who  falls 
in  love  with  an  actress  is  more  apt  to  make  one  of  a 
chorus  than  to  take  part  in  a  duet,  and  unless  he  has  a 
pretty  strong  voice,  he  gets  drowned  out." 

"  Who  is  falling  in  love  with  an  actress  ?  "  replied  Dick 


70  THE  TRELOARS 

impatiently.  "  Can't  a  man  look  at  a  pretty  woman,  and 
pay  her  a  few  compliments  without  falling  in  love  with 
her." 

"  Yes,  he  can ;  and  then  again,  sometimes,  he  can't. 
But  never  mind,  I  shan't  say  anything  more  about  it. 
Are  you  stopping  near  here  ?  " 

"  No,  I  am  a  mile  or  two  away." 

"  Well,  then,  we  part  here.  I  have  a  room  down  town. 
Good  night,  Dick." 

"  Good  night !  O,  stop  a  minute,  Max.  When  am 
I  going  to  see  you  again  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.     What  hours  have  you  off  ? " 

"  I  can't  tell  just  yet,  but  I  am  going  home  Saturday 
night  to  stay  over  Sunday.  Can't  you  go  out  with  me  ?  " 

Dick  was  going  to  add,  "  Margaret  will  be  glad  to  see 
you,"  but  something  restrained  him,  and  he  added,  in- 
stead. 

"If  you  can  go,  be  down  at  the  ferry  by  five  o'clock, 
and  we'll  go  over  together." 


CHAPTER  VII 

DR.  PARKER  had  chosen  for  the  site  of  his  home  a  most 
beautiful  spot  where  the  broad,  low  foothills,  grassy  and 
wooded  and  backed  by  bare,  towering  hills,  overhung  a 
sinuous  ravine  through  which  flowed  a  clear  stream,  its 
banks  bright  with  flowering  shrubs  and  tangled  thickets. 
The  house  faced  the  west  and  was  built  of  rough  stone, 
topped  by  unpainted  pine  shingles  that  in  the  course  of 
time  had  taken  on  rich  dark  weather  stains.  The  level 
lawn  was  vividly  green  except  where  a  few  pine  trees 
strewed  the  ground  with  brown  fragrant  needles,  or  lux- 
uriant rose  beds  blazed  a  rich  crimson,  or  blushed  with 
delicate  pink.  Across  the  ravine  a  rustic  bridge  led  to  a 
path  that  had  its  exit  on  the  Tunnel  Road. 

Your  first  impression,  as  you  entered  the  house  was  of 
light,  space  and  air.  The  broad  stairway  making  an 


THE  TRELOARS  71 

abrupt  turn  and  getting  itself  out  of  sight  as  quickly  as 
possible,  gave  place  to  vistas  of  several  rooms  opening 
one  into  the  other  by  sliding  doors  left  apart,  the  space 
being  filled  with  rich  dark  portieres.  The  polished 
floors  were  covered  with  handsome,  softly  colored  ori- 
ental rugs  in  harmony  with  the  tinted  walls.  A  deep 
wide  fire  place,  built  for  service  rather  than  show,  added 
a  hospitable  promise  of  comfort  to  each  room.  The 
promise  was  kept  to-night  in  a  bright  fire  burning  in  the 
library  where  Dolly  and  her  father  spent  their  evenings. 
Dolly  was  very  domestic,  and  although  she  gladly  left  to 
her  housekeeper,  and  her  maid,  all  the  heavier  and  more 
disagreeable  tasks,  she  liked  to  look  after  the  dusting  her- 
self. She  liked  to  give  that  indescribable  home-like 
touch  to  her  rooms,  which  only  one  who  has  the 
knack  of  it  can  give.  They  were  great  comrades  —  this 
father  and  daughter,  neither  of  them  feeling  the  years 
which  separated  them  any  barrier  to  their  complete  com- 
panionship. During  the  hours  in  which  Dolly  was  busy 
with  her  lessons,  or  her  household  tasks,  her  father  was 
reading  in  his  library,  or  looking  after  the  management 
of  his  estate.  As  he  had  been  'particularly  interested  in 
science  in  his  college  days,  so  he  continued  to  be  inter- 
ested in  the  great  discoveries  and  inventions  of  his  age. 
Intensely  skeptical  in  his  nature,  he  owed  to  his  associa- 
tion with  Philip  Treloar  an  elasticity  and  elevation  of 
thought  which  saved  him  from  scientific  dogmatism,  and 
although  in  his  youth  he  had  openly  declared  himself  a 
disciple  of  English  agnosticism,  and  had  believed  his  Dar- 
win, Huxley,  and  Spencer  as  implicitly  as  any  bigot  be- 
lieves in  his  Bible  to  the  exclusion  of  all  rational  interpre- 
tation, he  was  no  longer  absolutely  sure  of  the  infallibility 
of  science.  He  had  outlived  the  short-lived  reign  of 
too  many  hypotheses  to  recognize  them  any  longer  as  in- 
disputable facts,  or  to  feel  that  the  riddle  of  the  universe 
has  been  solved.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  could  not 
believe  with  Treloar  that  intuition  may  soar  and  see, 
where  reason  and  experience  grope  in  the  dark,  or  that 


72  THE  TRELOARS 

science,  having  to  do  only  with  what  can  be  weighed  and 
measured,  is  incapacitated  for  dealing  with  the  phe- 
nomenon of  mind.  Hence  their  endless  disputes,  their 
ceaseless  grappling  with  the  vital  questions  of  life  —  its 
meaning  and  its  destiny. 

From  these  long  discussions,  Dr.  Parker  learned  the 
tenacity  of  that  passionate  longing  for  immortality  which 
makes  life  look  pitiful  without  an  assurance  of  it.  He 
saw,  too,  how  closely  the  morality  of  the  Christian  world 
is  interwoven  with  the  belief  in  a  future  life  which  is  to 
atone  for  the  pain  and  injustice  of  the  present,  and  what 
havoc  it  makes  of  the  courage  to  live  in  accordance  with 
the  precepts  of  Christianity,  when  the  hope  of  the  reward 
for  so  living  is  destroyed.  This  seemed  to  him  the  fatal 
weakness  —  not  to  say  the  gross  materialism  of  Chris- 
tian ethics.  That  this  faith  must,  in  the  course  of  time, 
be  destroyed,  he  firmly  believed,  and  that  a  basis  of 
morality  must  be  established  having  no  reference  what- 
ever to  a  future  life.  By  temperament,  strongly  in- 
clined to  justice  and  moderation  in  all  things,  it  had  not 
been  difficult  for  him  to  live  the  Christian  life  without 
the  Christian  faith.  He  felt  that  he  was  only  doing 
what  the  sages  of  all  nations  in  all  times,  before  as  well  as 
after  the  Christian  era,  had  prescribed  as  the  duty  of  man. 
Morality,  to  him,  meant  nothing  more  nor  less  than  wis- 
dom. It  was  this  belief  that  exposed  him  continually  to 
Treloar's  withering  scorn  as  being  entirely  illogical.  To- 
day, Dr.  Parker  was  enjoying  himself  in  his  big  easy 
chair,  drawn  up  on  one  side  of  the  glowing  fire  place, 
with  Dolly  in  another  chair  opposite  him,  looking  the 
picture  of  happiness.  Arrayed  in  a  delicate  pink  muslin 
dress  with  white  lace  trimmings,  a  pink  rose  in  her  dark 
hair,  and  the  glow  of  the  fire  on  her  youthful  face,  she  was 
a  delightful  picture  to  look  at. 

"  Daddy,  I  like  these  chill  foggy  summer  days  that 
keep  people  at  home.  They  are  such  a  rest  after  a  run 
of  visitors." 

"  I  thought  you  liked  visitors." 


THE  TRELOARS  73 

"  So  I  do,  but  not  all  the  time.  I  like  to  lose  myself 
sometimes  in  a  crowd,  but  then  on  the  other  hand,  I  like 
to  find  myself  again  by  being  alone." 

"Dolly,  how  would  you  like  to  go  to  the  university?  " 

"  I  wouldn't  like  it  at  all." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  I  haven't  time  to  go.  There  is  so  much  I 
want  to  learn." 

Her  father  burst  out  laughing. 

"  Dolly,  that's  a  crazy  kind  of  answer." 

"  You  think  so  ?  That's  because  you  haven't  examined 
the  premises." 

"  What !    Are  you  catching  the  argumentative  fever  ?  " 

"  I  don't  see  how  I  can  escape  it,  being  so  frequently 
exposed  to  it  from  you  and  Mr.  Treloar." 

"  Escape  it  if  you  can,  Dolly.  I  don't  want  it  to  break 
out  in  the  bosom  of  my  family.  But  state  your  prem- 
ises." 

"  There  they  are,"  said  Dolly,  indicating  by  a  sweep 
of  her  hand,  the  long  rows  of  book  shelves  lining  the 
wall,  closely  packed  with  masterpieces  in  all  the  leading 
European  languages. 

"  You  have  been  at  a  great  deal  of  expense  in  collect- 
ing the  best  books  that  have  been  written  in  the  world, 
haven't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  have  a  fairly  good  library,"  answered  her 
father  looking  around  at  his  books  with  an  air  of  satis- 
faction. 

"  And  you  took  pains  to  give  me  an  excellent  gov- 
erness, didn't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  you  have  been  well  taught." 

"  But  the  principal  thing  which  she  taught  me  was  that 
nobody  could  teach  me  but  myself,  and  that  if  I  loved 
reading  and  knew  a  good  book  from  a  poor  one,  I  had 
my  education  in  my  own  hands.  Do  you  think  she  was 
right?" 

"  Yes,  I  think  she  was  right." 

"  Very  well,  then.     I  do  love  to  read.     I  know  that 


74  THE  TRELOARS 

you  haven't  collected  anything  but  good  books,  big  books. 
I  have  a  great  deal  of  curiosity  and  I  want  to  read  from 
these  books  within  my  reach,  and  so  go  on  with  my 
education,  for  Miss  Allison  taught  me  too,  that  one's 
education  never  stops,  but  is  always  going  on.  Now 
how  could  I  do  all  this,  if  I  went  to  college?  Does  that 
seem  so  crazy  to  you  now,  as  it  did  at  first  ?  " 

Her  father  clasped  his  hands  at  the  back  of  his  head, 
leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  looked  thoughtfully  into  the 
fire,  then  said  rather  slowly: 

"  No,  I  don't  think  it  does ;  but  wouldn't  the  university 
introduce  a  certain  method  into  your  reading  ? " 

"  You  mean  wouldn't  it  make  me  trot  in  harness  along 
a  level  road,  when  I  want  to  run  freely  over  whole 
pastures?  Yes,  I  think  it  would,  and  that's  why  I  don't 
want  it.  Father,  do  you  know  anything  more  deadly 
than  to  be  forced  to  read  what  has  absolutely  no  mean- 
ing to  you,  or  is  of  no  importance  to  you,  when  you 
do  know  what  it  means !  That  is  exactly  what  Cath- 
erine is  doing.  She  was  telling  me  yesterday  about  it. 
She  has  to  read  a  lot  of  antique  Anglo  Saxon  stuff  that 
takes  as  much  time  as  a  foreign  language  does.  In  fact 
it  is  a  foreign  language  to  her,  with  the  disadvantage 
of  being  as  dead  as  the  people  who  once  spoke  it  and 
when  she  does  translate  it,  it  isn't  worth  the  time  she 
puts  on  it,  not  to  speak  of  the  trouble.  I  asked  her  if 
she  were  going  to  keep  it  up  when  she  left  the  university, 
and  she  fairly  hooted  at  the  question,  and  said  she  was 
going  to  forget  it  as  soon  as  she  could.  Now,  father, 
what's  the  sense  of  all  that?  " 

"  There  doesn't  seem  to  be  much,  does  there  ?  " 

"  No,  not  a  bit  of  it.  Then  she  has  to  keep  a  set  of 
note-books  which  mean  nothing  but  copying  what  some- 
body else  has  said.  She  has  laboratory  work  in  the  sci- 
ences, which  means  that  she  is  discovering  all  over  again 
for  herself  what  she  knows  by  having  read  her  text-books. 
Then,  she  has  to  run  from  one  lecture  to  another  without 
any  intermission  to  give  her  the  chance  to  let  one  thing 


THE  TRELOARS  75 

soak  into  her,  and  so  she  forgets  it  all.  It  is  like  trying 
to  drive  three  or  four  nails  all  into  the  same  place." 

"  Why  doesn't  she  give  it  up  ?  " 

"  O,  she  says  the  social  side  of  the  life  makes  up  for 
the  other.  She  says  the  studies  do  not  so  much  inter- 
fere with  the  pleasure,  as  you  might  think  at  first.  There 
are  always  a  few  students  who  take  themselves  seriously 
and  can  grind,  and  they  sometimes  pass  their  note-books 
around  to  the  others." 

"  Yes,  I  know  how  that  goes.  We  used  to  have  the 
dearest  old  professor  In  geology,  who  required  a  col- 
lection of  stones  and  minerals  for  class  credits,  and  one 
fellow's  collection  did  duty  for  the  whole  class.  We 
all  took  turns  in  presenting  it  and  getting  credit  for  it. 
I  don't  think  he  ever  looked  at  it,  and  we  were  immensely 
grateful  for  the  oversight." 

"  It's  no  new  thing,  then." 

"  No,  human  nature  seems  to  get  us  all  cut  after  the 
same  pattern." 

"  I  think  she  varies  the  pattern  a  little  even  in  the 
same  family.  Take  the  Treloars,  for  instance.  I  don't 
think  Margaret  and  Catherine  are  a  bit  alike,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Which  would  you  rather  I  should  be  like  ?  " 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  be  like  either  of  them,  I  want 
you  to  be  just  what  you  are." 

"  But  which  of  them  do  you  admire  the  more  ?  " 

"  Margaret,  of  course ;  but  then  Margaret  is  a  good 
deal  older  than  Catherine." 

"  It  isn't  a  question  of  age  at  all,  Daddy.  Catherine 
will  never  be  like  Margaret,  and  Margaret  never  had  a 
college  education." 

"  O,  that's  what  you're  driving  at,  is  it  ?  Well,  don't 
bother  your  head  about  the  matter  any  more.  I  am  not 
going  to  send  you  to  college,  if  you  don't  want  to  go. 
I  was  only  thinking  of  what  might  be  of  advantage  to 
you.  You  know  I  wouldn't  for  the  world  have  you  miss 
anything  that  would  be  really  valuable  to  you." 


;6  THE  TRELOARS 

"Then  the  college  wouldn't  do  me  any  good,  Daddy. 
I  can  show  you  a  foot-note  in  Kant  where  he  says  that 
the  want  of  judgment  is  stupidity,  and  that  it  is  an  in- 
firmity not  to  be  remedied  by  any  amount  of  learning." 

"  What !  Have  you  been  reading  Kant  ?  "  said  her 
father,  looking  very  much  surprised. 

"  Reading  Kant !  "  Dolly  broke  into  a  laugh.  "  You 
might  just  as  well  ask  me  if  I  had  been  playing  leap 
frog  with  the  moon.  No,  I  can't  read  Kant,  and  as  Mr. 
Treloar  would  say,  I  am  proud  of  my  limitations,  but 
I've  been  dabbling  around  in  him  and  finding  high  and 
dry  standing  places  in  the  weltering  chaos.  Weltering 
chaos  is  good,  isn't  it  ?  I  picked  that  out  of  Carlyle." 

"  What  in  the  world  set  you  to  reading  Kant  ?  " 

"  Curiosity.  I  wondered  what  sort  of  man  he  was 
who  looked  so  big  to  you  and  Mr.  Treloar." 

"  Don't  forget,  Dolly,  that  the  size  of  anything  de- 
pends upon  how  far  you  are  away  from  it.  I  suppose  he 
looked  pretty  small  to  you." 

"  Nothing  but  mist  and  haze !  I  really  couldn't  see 
him  at  all;  and  to  think,  Daddy,  that  in  your  lovely 
youth,  you  wanted  to  be  something  like  that,  instead  of 
husband  and  father  and  man  of  action.  But  I  have 
converted  you,  now,  and  you  are  to  stay  converted,  even 
after  I've  gone  upstairs.  There's  the  clock  striking 
eleven.  Who  would  have  thought  it  was  so  late  ?  What 
a  good  time  we've  had." 

She  stooped  and  kissed  him.  He  watched  her  as  she 
left  the  room  and  his  eyes  glistened.  Was  he  wholly 
converted?  He  loved  her  entirely.  He  could  not  think 
of  his  life  as  having  any  value  without  her,  and  yet 
if  it  could  have  been  granted  him  to  roll  back  the  years, 
and  stand  again  at  the  threshold  of  early  manhood  with 
all  his  powers  converged  upon  the  object  of  his  ambition, 
sure  to  win  it,  some  sharp  savage  instinct  of  self-preser- 
vation in  him  would  have  urged  him  to  accept  the  gift. 
It  was  not  that  his  heart  was  cold,  but  that  it  was 
still  shiveringly  sensitive  to  pain,  and  life  had  taught 


THE  TRELOARS  77 

him  that  no  man's  happiness  is  secure  when  it  lies  in  the 
keeping  of  another.  How  long  would  it  be  before  Dolly 
would  be  flitting  away  from  him  to  be  the  joy  of  another 
man's  home?  The  thought  pained  him  so  deeply  that 
he  thrust  it  away  from  him,  determined  not  to  suffer  in 
anticipation,  but  to  rejoice  in  his  happiness  while  he 
had  it. 

And  Dolly,  standing  before  the  mirror  braiding  her 
dark  heavy  hair  for  the  night,  leaned  towards  the  beau- 
tiful image  looking  back  at  her,  and  smiled  at  it  as  if 
it  were  a  sister's  face  and  not  the  image  of  herself.  It 
was  not  empty  vanity  that  thrilled  her  with  pleasure  as 
she  looked,  but  an  almost  impersonal  joy  in  the  beauty 
which  she  saw,  because  it  held  in  it  the  promise  of  joy 
for  another.  Life  throbbed  deliciously  in  all  her  veins. 
She  felt  that  she  had  not  been  destined  to  creep  gray 
and  nun-like  down  the  solitary  years,  but  was  meant  to 
express  the  affirmation  that  life  is  good. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DICK  going  to  his  lodgings  that  same  evening  had 
no  future  and  no  past,  he  was  living  in  a  glorified  pres- 
ent—  a  golden  hazy  state  of  felicity  incapable  of  defin- 
ite outline.  He  only  knew  that  temporarily  Mr.  Cressy 
had  driven  all  the  prismatic  coloring  out  of  his  world, 
and  that  it  had  all  come  back  again  in  gorgeous  rainbow 
tints;  and  arrived  at  his  room,  he  sat  up  the  rest  of  the 
night,  writing  a  glowing  eulogy  of  Nita  Normand. 

When  the  editor  read  it  over  the  next  day,  he  had  an 
idea  that  Dick  was  trying  to  efface  the  mistake  which 
he  had  made  in  criticising  so  severely  the  novel  which  he 
had  given  him  to  review,  and  he  said  to  Dick,  as  he 
scratched  his  head  dubiously: 

"  Treloar,  there  is  a  happy  medium  in  this  sort  of 
thing  that  you  haven't  struck  just  yet.  You  are  all 
black  or  all  white,  dazzling  white.  You  don't  seem  to 


78  THE  TRELOARS 

be  able  to  strike  a  neutral  tint.  You  must  learn  not  to 
take  me  too  literally." 

"  Excuse  me,"  said  Dick,  "  do  you  suppose  that  I 
am  writing  anything  but  my  opinion,  now?" 

"  Then,  you  really  saw  all  this  in  the  play  ?  " 

He  gave  the  offending  manuscript  a  little  tap  with  the 
back  of  his  hand. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  written  it,  if  I  hadn't." 

He  looked  so  indignantly  sincere  that  the  editor 
chuckled  a  little,  then  cordially  remarked: 

"  All  right,  Treloar,  we'll  run  it  in,  then,  only  it  seems 
strange  that  somebody  else  hasn't  discovered  this  Ameri- 
can Bernhardt  or  Duse,  for  she  has  been  playing  here  a 
month  or  two.  Can  you  cut  it  down  to  half  a  column?  " 

It  was  like  asking  Dick  if  he  could  cut  off  his  fingers, 
and  seeing  his  discomfiture,  Cressy  smiled  again. 

"  You'll  get  used  to  it  after  while.  You  think  now  as 
I  used  to."  (How  Dick  hated  his  constant  half  con- 
temptuous allusion  to  his  youth).  "  You  think  now  that 
'  noblesse  oblige '  in  literature  as  well  as  life.  You  have 
forgotten  the  older  commandment  not  to  throw  your 
pearls  before  swine.  Do  you  recall  what  I  said  to  you 
the  other  day?  The  newspaper  exists  for  the  multitude 
—  for  the  average  man,  and  the  average  man  walks 
flat  on  his  feet;  he  does  not  soar,  and  we  must  not  fly 
over  his  head,  if  we  wish  to  reach  his  ears." 

"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  said  Dick,  mopping  his  face  with 
his  handkerchief,  for  he  felt  very  hotly  indignant  and  un- 
comfortable. "  I  dare  say  I  am  going  to  say  something 
else  that  you  used  to  believe,  but  have  got  over,  along 
with  the  measles  and  the  whooping  cough,  but  I  must 
say  it,  or  feel  myself  a  miserable  coward.  The  multitude, 
so  far  as  I  know  it,  and  am  one  of  it,  is  neither  so  thick 
skinned  nor  thidk  headed  as  not  to  have  a  natural  in- 
stinct for  what  is  sane  and  wholesome.  In  fact,  all  the 
silly  fads  which  the  so-called  educated  man  goes  into, 
pass  quite  over  its  head.  All  the  superstitions  of  our  day 
belong  to  the  so-called  upper  class,  not  the  lower.  It  is 


THE  TRELOARS  79 

the  man  who  is  a  little  above  the  average  who  is  doing 
the  mischief.  He  is  absolutely  indifferent  to  everything 
but  his  own  success;  but  he  gives  a  fine  name  to  his 
indifference  and  ignorance.  He  calls  it  tolerance,  breadth 
of  mind,  and  he  boasts  of  it  as  our  forefathers  boasted 
of  their  bigotry.  They  went  out  of  their  way  to  ex- 
press a  deeply  felt  conviction.  We  go  out  of  our  way  to 
avoid  expressing  what  we  feebly  think.  For  if  I  under- 
stand you  correctly,  deeply  felt  convictions  are  quite  out 
of  date.  You  doubted  that  I  was  sincere  when  I  wrote 
that  last  article,  and  I  was  never  more  sincere  in  my  life. 
In  place  of  convictions,  evidently,  we  are  to  have  brazen 
lungs  and  brass  bands,  and  other  advertising  parapher- 
nalia to  catch  the  eye  and  ear,  and  we  are  all  to  meekly 
follow  the  procession.  Your  theory  is  that  if  we  don't 
follow  it,  we  shall  cut  a  very  lonely  figure ;  and  you  would 
have  us  feebly  prattle  to  our  feeble  consciences  about 
there  being  some  truth  in  it,  after  all ;  and  we  must  look 
at  the  good,  not  the  bad,  and  we  must  be  tolerant,  every- 
body has  a  right  to  his  own  opinion;  and  let  them  have 
their  day,  the  right  will  prevail  in  the  end;  or  it  doesn't 
seem  quite  right  to  me,  but  then  I  don't  understand  it, 
and  it  is  none  of  my  business.  But  it  is  our  business  and 
right  will  never  have  its  day  —  till  we  make  day  for  it, 
and  tolerance  of  that  feeble  wishy  washy  type  is  nothing 
but  downright  cowardice,  or  ignorant  indifference  —  a 
milder  way  of  just  saying,  '  I  don't  care  a  damn/  But  I 
do  care,  Mr.  Cressy.  It  is  life  to  me  to  care." 

Dick  looked  so  handsome,  so  full  of  the  resistless  energy 
and  glow  of  youth,  that  Cressy  felt  his  pulses  stir  in 
sympathy  with  him,  and  instead  of  reminding  him  that 
he  was  echoing  the  sentiment  of  his  own  dead  youth,  he 
said: 

"  I  understand  exactly  how  you  feel,  Treloar.  It  is 
a  damn  hypocritical  babyish  age  we're  living  in.  The 
fact  is  that  we  are  all  victims  of  a  plethora  of  liberty  that 
broke  in  on  us  with  the  French  Revolution,  and  we  have 
carried  our  hatred  of  restrictions  so  far  that  we  even 


8o  THE  TRELOARS 

want  to  take  our  clothes  off  in  public,  literally  and  figura- 
tively, so  that  nobody,  now,  is  ashamed  to  expose  his  in- 
telligence without  the  smallest  fig-leaf  of  thought  to 
cover  its  nakedness ;  and  we  are,  also,  victims,  from  the 
same  source,  of  a  mania  for  equality,  and  as  we  can't  all 
grow  to  a  respectable  height,  we  want  to  trim  down  all 
those  who  over-top  the  crowd.  You  think  that  the  news- 
papers are  the  chief  offenders  in  this  lopping-off  process. 
That  isn't  so.  It  has  its  beginning,  higher  up,  in  that 
mawkish  sugar-teat  education  which  the  public  schools 
are  giving  to  the  young.  The  educators  of  the  world 
have  found  out  just  what  we  have  discovered,  namely, 
that  everybody  can't  take  an  education;  but  instead  of 
courageously  admitting  the  fact,  and  honestly  trying  to 
educate  those  who  really  can  be  educated,  and  giving  to 
those  who  can't  what  they  are  able  to  assimilate,  they 
lump  them  all  together,  take  their  difficult  subjects  and 
make  a  kind  of  pap  for  the  toothless  intelligence  out 
of  them,  and  then  keep  on  thinning  it  down,  as  they  find 
it  necessary,  till  the  original  substance  is  lost  in  a  weak, 
tasteless,  innutritions  liquid.  I  intend  to  take  my  boy 
Jim  out  of  school  so  that  he  can  learn  something,  if  it 
is  only  how  damn  little  he  does  know.  Innocent  ignor- 
ance isn't  so  bad,  it's  only  when  it  gives  itself  airs  and 
gets  obtrusive  by  a  superficial  smattering  of  school  text- 
book knowledge  that  it  is  so  insufferable.  That's  what 
I  wanted  you  to  run  up  against  by  boarding  among  the 
real  people.  Did  you  take  my  advice  ?  " 
"  Yes." 

I"  .Good ! "  Cressy's  eyes  brightened  and  he  leaned 
forward,  placing  his  two  fat  hands  on  his  knees.  "  Well, 
you  are  beginning  to  get  acquainted  with  them,  now, 
aren't  you?  Don't  interest  you  any  more  than  chickens, 
do  they?  Mother  takes  in  boarders  because  the  girls 
want  to  live  in  a  big  showy-looking  house  from  the 
street.  Father  comes  in  at  the  kitchen  door  with  a  clay 
pipe  in  his  mouth  and  a  kit  of  tools  on  his  back,  and 
never  sees  any  other  part  of  the  house  except  his  bed- 


THE  TRELOARS  81 

room  in  the  attic,  because  all  the  habitable  rooms  are 
rented  out,  except  the  parlor  where  the  piano  is.  The 
piano  is  always  out  of  tune.  The  girls  are  in  the  high 
school,  when  they  aren't  pounding  on  the  piano,  no  more 
conscious  of  its  being  out  of  tune  than  the  stool  they  sit 
on.  Then  begins  the  awful,  the  barbarous  woe  of  the 
boarding  house!  The  pounding,  the  shrieking  and  sky- 
larking and  quavering  in  the  name  of  music —  Owl 
wow!  Wow!  God!  I  think  I  can  hear  it  in  my  ears 
yet !  It  ought  to  be  a  capital  offense  to  have  a  piano  in 
a  boarding  house.  Then  cabbage  every  day  in  the 
week " 

"  No,  only  on  wash-days,"  interrupted  Dick,  with  a 
laugh,  "  but  it  has  a  clinging  odor  that  hangs  on  to  the 
stairs,  and  trails  in  at  the  door  of  your  room  all  week 
long.  Yes,  I  know  all  that,  and  I  don't  like  it  any  better 
than  you  do.  That  is  why  I  was  objecting  to  the  re- 
flection of  that  tawdry,  meaningless  life  in  the  novel  that 
I  criticised.  It  is  bad  enough  to  live  with  it  in  reality, 
without  trying  to  live  with  it  again  on  paper.  A  little 
of  that  sort  of  thing  goes  a  long  way." 

"  Yes,  I  know,"  said  Mr.  Cressy,  quickly,  feeling  that 
he  was  losing  ground  in  maintaining  the  wisdom  and  pro- 
priety of  his  tolerant  attitude  to  cheap  literature.  "  But 
with  all  your  fastidiousness,  you  must  not  forget  the 
bread  and  butter  side  of  the  question.  These  people  who 
hang  their  photographs  and  graduating  certificates  on  the 
parlor  wall,  like  to  have  tjjeir  pictures  taken  for  that 
purpose  in  family  groups,  in  friendly  groups,  or  posing 
alone  in  some  striking  attitude,  either  fierce  as  a  pot  lion, 
or  insidiously  jovial  as  a  Cheshire  cat;  and  the  books 
they  like  are  the  books  that  reproduce  them  photograph- 
ically. That  is  why  modern  fiction  has  borrowed  the 
laboratory  method.  It  handles  raw  materials.  Those 
who  want  to  write  about  tramps,  live  among  tramps. 
Women  who  want  to  write  about  shop-girls  turn  shop- 
girls themselves  and  write  shop-girl  literature.  You  can't 
alter  that  fact  any  more  than  you  can  alter  human  na- 


82  THE  TRELOARS 

ture.  You  remember  that  Wordsworth  wrote  an  ode 
to  the  Daisy  in  which  he  addresses  the  flower  in  these 
words:  'Thou  unassuming  commonplace!'  Now  that 
strikes  you  and  me  as  being  the  proper  attitude  for  the 
commonplace;  but  in  our  day,  the  commonplace  struts, 
and  is  full  of  assumption.  It  puts  money  in  its  purse, 
too,  and  thinks  that  that  makes  it  uncommon;  and  we 
should  like  to  relieve  it  a  little  of  its  agreeable  burden; 
in  other  words,  we  should  like  to  put  a  little  of  its 
money  into  our  purse,  too,  and  so  we  have  to  recognize 
it.  Don't  forget  that  we  aren't  running  a  paper  as  a 
charitable  institution,  nor  to  reflect  ourselves.  We  are 
running  a  paper  to  reflect  the  people.  For  that  reason 
journalism  is  not  the  production  of  literature  in  its  high- 
est sense.  It  has  no  intention  of  being  literature  which 
requires  time  at  its  disposal  as  well  as  uncommon  gifts. 
It  is  only  a  passing  reflection  of  passing  opinions.  Who 
reads  yesterday's  paper,  or  the  morning  paper  when  he 
can  get  the  evening  one,  damp  from  the  press?  Now, 
Treloar,  the  sooner  you  can  get  that  into  your  head,  the 
better.  You  are  clever.  You've  got  a  good  style.  You 
don't  fumble.  You  hit  the  nail  on  the  head.  You  have 
correct  and  safe  ideas  on  a  great  many  subjects.  Pos- 
sibly you  can  really  produce  literature ;  but  for  the  pres- 
ent, for  the  sake  of  getting  on  your  feet,  you  want  to 
go  into  journalism;  and  it  is  a  sort  of  trade  like  any 
other,  to  which  a  long  apprenticeship  is  necessary.  Now, 
then,  I  am  going  to  be  indulgent  for  the  last  time,  and 
ask  you  what  part  of  this  article  you  wish  cut  out,  to  re- 
duce it  to  —  well  —  we'll  say  a  column,  this  time." 

"  Cut  out  the  reflections,"  said  Dick  without  hesitating, 
"  and  spare  as  much  as  you  can  to  the  actress  herself." 

"  Fine ! "  exclaimed  Cressy  with  a  broad  unctuous 
smile  of  approval.  "  That's  the  way  to  talk.  We'll  make 
a  journalist  of  you,  yet.  I  think  it  may  be  safely  laid 
down  as  a  rule  that  the  enjoyment  of  what  you  call  re- 
flections —  I  mean  thought  in  the  abstract,  generaliza- 
tions, etc.  —  is  a  mark  of  more  than  average  intelligence. 


THE  TRELOARS  83 

The  great  bulk  of  readers  want  the  facts  without  any 
trimmings.  They  want  their  stories  with  something  do- 
ing in  them  —  fizz,  bang,  buss  —  firecrackers  in  every 
chapter,  and  a  grand  hullabaloo  to  close  with." 

"  How  do  you  account  for  the  vogue  of  Ibsen,  Strind- 
berg,  Shaw,  and  others  of  that  ilk  who  haven't  any  noisy 
fireworks  in  them  ?  " 

"  Well,  that  has  puzzled  me,  too.  The  fact  is  that 
the  general  public  doesn't  like  that  sort  of  thing.  It 
buys  it  out  of  curiosity,  hearsay,  puff,  reads  it,  yawns, 
forgets  all  about  it.  Have  you  ever  thought  that 
modern  fiction  has  not  produced  a  single  character  that 
lives  in  the  memory  as  a  real  being  like  those  delicious 
so-called  caricatures  of  Dickens?  What  a  poor  little 
paper  doll  Hedda  Gabler  is  compared  with  Thackeray's 
full-blooded  Becky  Sharp.  No,  modern  literature  at  its 
best  is  vivisection.  The  older  literature  was  creation. 
But  vivisection  is  the  order  of  the  day.  Curiosity!  curi- 
osity !  that's  all,  and  it  takes  sympathy  and  not  curiosity 
to  make  literature." 

Dick's  face  lighted  up  again.  It  was  the  first  thing 
that  his  chief  had  said  to  which  he  could  give  his  hearty 
assent.  He  felt  so  grateful  that  he  said  so,  adding :  "  I 
should  like  to  please  you,  on  condition,  of  course,  of  not 
being  a  traitor  to  my  convictions." 

Mr.  Cressy  smiled  rather  ambiguously.  A  conviction 
had  long  since  ceased  to  mean  to  him  anything  more 
than  a  matter  of  interest  or  convenience,  but  he  forbore 
saying  so,  knowing  that  Dick  had  not  yet  arrived  at  the 
same  degree  of  tolerance. 


CHAPTER  IX 

IN  pursuance  of  his  plans  for  launching  the  Dawn  into 
,the  world,  Max  Gietmann  rented  a  third  floor  of  a  dingy 
office  building  in  a  short  irregular  side  street  running  off 
Market  Street  near  the  ferry.  He  fitted  it  up  with  a 


84  THE  TRELOARS 

second  hand  printing  press,  a  desk,  and  two  or  three 
chairs.  It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  surroundings 
less  suggestive  of  the  illuminating  character  of  his  enter- 
prise than  these  three  bare  rooms  into  which  the  sun- 
light never  shone  until  late  in  the  afternoon.  But  Max 
had  not  been  spoiled  by  luxury;  he  had  learned  to  be 
content  with  a  shelter  from  rain  and  storm.  Seeing  that 
his  rent,  his  press,  his  paper,  and  other  necessary  equip- 
ments would  use  up  the  greater  part  of  the  money  he 
had  on  hand,  he  resolved  to  leave  the  hotel  where  he 
was  staying,  and  furnish  one  of  the  rooms  for  a  sleeping 
room.  He  bought  a  cot,  mattress,  some  inexpensive  bed- 
clothes, a  washstand,  a  pitcher  and  bowl  of  white  enam- 
eled ware,  a  second-hand  clothes  press,  and  moved  into 
his  apartment,  with  a  sense  of  freedom  and  satisfaction 
which  he  had  not  felt  for  a  long  time.  There  were  plenty 
of  restaurants  in  the  vicinity  where  he  could  get  a  cheap 
and  wholesome  meal  at  all  hours. 

The  only  thing  that  he  needed  was  an  assistant  who 
could  make  himself  generally  useful  as  type-setter,  book- 
keeper, proof-reader,  and  a  writer  of  articles,  at  a  pinch. 
He  thought  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  find  such  a  man 
in  so  cosmopolitan  a  city  as  San  Francisco,  for  he  had 
met  too  many  university  graduates  in  distress  in  various 
parts  of  America  to  believe  that  they  were  rare  any- 
where. He  inserted  an  advertisement  in  all  the  daily 
papers,  appointing  Saturday  afternoon,  at  four,  and  his 
office,  as  the  time  and  place  for  an  interview. 

He  had  not  calculated  in  vain.  They  began  literally 
pouring  in  at  half-past  two  —  a  strange,  eager  crowd  of 
indisputably  shabby,  and  shabby  genteel  men,  young  and 
old,  of  almost  every  nationality ;  yet  bearing,  all  of  them, 
the  same  stamp  of  poverty,  the  same  subtle  sign  of  in- 
born unfitness  to  cope  with  the  demands  of  their  environ- 
ment, and  giving  the  lie,  all  of  them,  to  that  universally 
cherished  conviction,  that  ignorance  is  the  mother  of  sin 
and  hardship,  and  that  a  good  education  is  a  guarantee 
for  success  in  life.  These  men  were  not  ignorant.  There 


THE  TRELOARS  85 

were  keen  sharp  faces  among  them  that  told  of  long 
hours  spent  over  books  and  study,  faces  that  haunted  one 
with  an  uneasy  sense  of  responsibility  towards  them. 
Yet  no  external  help  could  have  availed  them  long,  for 
there  was  no  compass  within  to  guide  them  surely.  They 
were  the  misfits  of  civilization  who  under  no  circum- 
stances can  find  or  keep  an  equilibrium.  They  were  top 
heavy  and  always  destined  to  turn  over,  head  foremost, 
as  soon  as  they  were  put  on  their  feet.  Some  of  them 
bore  the  unmistakable  signs  of  dissipation,  or  the  dom- 
ination of  evil  passions;  some  of  them  had  a  hangdog 
look;  others  looked  at  you  with  the  frank  innocence  of 
a  child. 

Max  spoke  with  several  of  them,  and  finally  turned  to 
a  tall,  dark-haired  man  of  sallow  complexion,  and  said 
to  him  in  German: 

"  Unless  I  am  mistaken,  you  are  one  of  my  country- 
men." 

The  man's  face  brightened  as  he  affirmed  that  he 
was,  adding  that  he  hoped  he  was,  also,  just  the  man  that 
was  wanted. 

"  I  have  brought  with  me,"  he  continued,  opening  a 
huge  scrap-book  which  he  had  carried  under  his  arm, 
"some  examples  of  my  journalistic  work  —  humorous 
poetry,  literary  criticisms,  idle  thoughts,  sketches  from 
life,  that  will  show  you  what  I  can  do  in  that  line." 

"  I  am  afraid,"  replied  Max  with  a  dubious  look  at 
the  heavy  credentials,  "that  you  are  a  little  too  high  up 
for  the  miscellaneous  work  that  I  want  done.  Can  you 
set  type  ?  " 

"  I  can  set  type  and  I  can  clean  out  a  spittoon.  I  am 
not  too  high  for  anything  that  will  put  a  good  dinner  into 
my  belly." 

"  All  right,"  replied  Max,  "  I  can  promise  you  a  good 
dinner;  and  as  for  the  spittoon,  there  won't  be  any  to 
clean,  unless  it's  your  own.  I  smoke,  but  I  don't  spit. 
Just  go  into  the  next  room  and  wait  for  me,  till  I  dismiss 
these  other  fellows,  will  you  ?  " 


86  THE  TRELOARS 

It  was  not  so  easy  a  task  to  get  rid  of  the  others,  as 
it  seemed.  They  were  all  hungry,  run  down  at  the  heel, 
and  though  incapable  of  permanently  sticking  to  any  task 
were  anxious  to  do  something  for  the  present.  They 
were  also  anxious  to  enlist  Max's  sympathies  by  telling 
him  the  story  of  their  life.  They  wished  to  assure  him 
that  society,  and  not  they  themselves,  was  responsible 
for  their  present  plight.  Some  needed  only  a  little  tem- 
porary assistance  to  tide  them  over  while  they  perfected 
some  scheme  or  wrote  some  book  that  would  make  them 
rich  and  famous,  as  soon  as  it  was  published.  There 
were  gray-haired  visionaries  whose  brilliant  schemes  for 
the  amelioration  of  society  were  singularly  discounten- 
anced by  the  failure  of  their  own  lives,  finding  it  in- 
comparably easier  to  erect  a  happy  commonwealth  on 
paper,  than  to  bring  one  rebellious  life  into  harmony  with 
existing  facts.  Individualists,  all  of  them  —  yet  un- 
ceasingly bent  on  molding  society  after  their  own  par- 
ticular pattern  of  individualism,  and  exceedingly  hostile 
towards  any  other  form  of  it. 

The  type  was  familiar  to  Max,  as  has  been  said  before, 
and  he  knew  what  to  say  to  each  one  of  them ;  neverthe- 
less, it  was  nearly  an  hour  before  the  office  was  cleared 
of  the  last  applicant.  He  threw  open  the  windows,  im- 
mediately, to  purify  the  vitiated  air,  then  he  entered  the 
room  into  which  he  had  ushered  the  stranger. 

"  Now,  sir,  let  us  get  acquainted  with  each  other,"  he 
began  abruptly.  "  My  name  is  Max  Gietmann.  What's 


yours 


"  My  name  is  Felix  Mayer,  a  striking  contrast  to  my 
fate,  which  has  been  eminently  in  felix." 

"  Where  were  you  educated  ?  " 

"  I  have  an  A.M  degree  from  the  University  of  Ber- 
lin, and  it  has  done  nothing  for  me  but  get  in  my  way, 
like  the  clumsy  train  of  a  woman's  ball  dress." 

"  How  do  you  make  that  out  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  was  educated  to  believe  that  the  world  could 
not  get  along  without  A.M.'s,  B.A.'s,  and  Pn.D.'s  and  it 


THE  TRELOARS  87 

has  taken  me  a  number  of  years  to  get  over  the  impres- 
sion, and  become  convinced  that  there  is  nothing  in  it." 

"  Are  you  quite  sure  you  have  got  over  it,  now  ? " 

"  In  practice,  yes ;  in  theory,  no.  I  still  believe  that 
an  aristocracy  of  intelligence  is  worth  more  than  an  aris- 
tocracy of  birth  or  wealth,  that  the  man  with  a  head  ought 
to  rule  the  man  who  is  nothing  but  belly  or  pocket-book. 
Unfortunately,  modern  society  is  organized  on  the  con- 
trary basis;  and  purse  and  belly  have  all  the  wind  in 
their  sails." 

"  And  that's  why  you  are  stranded,  eh  ?  "  asked  Max 
with  a  scornful  snort;  he  was  beginning  to  feel  that  he 
had  made  a  mistake  in  his  man,  and  not  waiting  for  a 
reply,  he  blurted  out: 

"  Would  you  mind  telling  me  frankly  just  what  is  your 
particular  vice  or  weakness  in  the  eyes  of  society?  I  am 
not  looking  for  perfection,  not  being  a  saint  myself ;  but, 
if  we  are  going  to  be  associated  for  any  length  of  time, 
I  want  to  know  just  how  far  I  can  depend  on  you,  and 
what  allowances  I  must  make  when  I  can't.  Do  you 
drink  to  excess,  or  gamble,  for  example  ? " 

Now  one  of  Mr.  Mayer's  particular  weaknesses  was 
a  flux  of  speech  and  instead  of  answering  the  question 
with  a  plain  "  yes,"  or  "  no,"  he  began : 

"  Not  frequently.  To  be  quite  frank  with  you.  I  have 
always  esteemed  my  liberty  too  highly  to  sacrifice  it  even 
to  the  interests  of  temperance.  I  have  never  taken  a 
pledge,  therefore  I  have  never  broken  one.  I  probably 
never  shall  take  a  pledge  and  I  sometimes  indulge  my 
desire  for  a  blessed  release  from  my  woes  by  taking  a 
glass  too  much." 

"  You  mean  that  you  go  on  periodical  sprees,"  said 
Max  with  prosaic  brevity. 

Mr.  Mayer  looked  at  him  in  reproachful  surprise,  but 
not  seeing  any  evidence  of  particular  disgust  in  his  face, 
answered  rather  meekly : 

"  I  believe  that  they  are  commonly  spoken  of  in  that 
way." 


88  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Very  well ;  may  I  infer  that  being  a  man  of  intelli- 
gence and  often  down  on  your  luck,  you  have  some 
scheme  for  the  amelioration  of  society?" 

Mr.  Mayer  glowed,  he  felt  the  ground  under  his  feet 
again. 

"  You  have  made  a  correct  inference,  sir.  No  intelli- 
gent man  who  has  at  heart  the  interests  of  humanity  can 
be  blind  to  the  immense  wrongs  under  which  the  pro- 
letariat groans.  Is  there  no  hope  of  relief  ?  I  have  con- 
secrated my  life,  sir,  to  the  task  of  lifting  the  burden  from 
the  shoulders  of  the  weak  and  shifting  it  to  the  back  of 
the  strong  where  it  belongs.  I  believe  in  the  rights  of 
nature,  the  right  to  leisure,  to  happiness,  and  in  the  in- 
fluence of  environment." 

"  Then,  your  particular  quarrel  with  civilization  is 
that  it  makes  the  great  majority  of  men  work,  and  the 
great  majority  of  women  virtuous  against  their  will?  " 

Mr.  Mayer  was  startled  into  brevity  by  this  crude  pres- 
entation of  his  views,  and  replied  with  a  stare : 

"What?" 

Max  chuckled  a  little.  He  was  familiar  with  the  so- 
cialistic and  anarchistic  programs,  and  he  liked  to  prick 
what  he  called  the  bubbles  with  the  sharp  point  of  his 
irony. 

"  Isn't  that  about  what  the  complaint  amounts  to,  when 
you  simmer  it  down  ?  " 

"  Mr.  Gietmann,"  replied  Mr.  Mayer,  with  a  grave  as- 
sumption of  dignity,  "  I  don't  quite  catch  the  drift  of 
what  you  mean.  Of  course,  it  would  be  presumption  in 
me  to  suppose  that  you  are  unfamiliar  with  the  teachings 
of  science.  If  man,  as  we  are  taught,  is  as  much  under 
the  dominion  of  natural  law  as  anything  else  in  nature, 
it  follows  that  he  is  as  much  a  product  of  his  environ- 
ment as  a  tree,  a  plant,  or  one  of  the  lower  animals,  and 
he  has  a  right  to  his  natural  environment.  The  soil 
should  be  as  free  as  the  air,  no  more  one  man's  than  an- 
other's. Society  takes  it  from  me  and  gives  it  to  you  — 
because  I  happen  to  be  born  under  unfavorable,  therefore 


THE  TRELOARS  89 

unnatural  social  conditions.  Restore  my  property  to  me, 
and  you  restore  dignity  and  happiness  to  me.  You  make 
a  new  man  of  me.  You  put  a  roof  over  my  head,  and 
good  clothes  on  my  back." 

"  It's  my  opinion  that  you  are  attaching  entirely  too 
much  importance  to  the  tailor  and  the  carpenter.  It  isn't 
artificial  accessories  that  make  a  man." 

"  Then  you  don't  believe  in  the  natural  equality  of 
man?" 

"  No,  I  don't,  neither  do  you.  The  lame,  the  halt,  the 
blind  in  body  as  well  as  in  intellect  are  not  the  equals  of 
the  strong,  the  prudent,  the  far-seeing;  and  no  form  of 
social  government,  or  lack  of  it,  is  going  to  make  them 
so." 

"  Pardon  me ! "  exclaimed  Mr.  Mayer,  excitedly. 
"  The  lame,  the  halt,  the  blind  are  not  nature's  products. 
They  are  the  products  of  an  oppressive  and  corrupt  form 
of  society  which  we  might  abolish,  and  restore  to  human 
nature  its  right  to  the  same  equality  which  you  find  in 
the  animal  world.  Look  at  the  birds!  Where  will  you 
find " 

"  O,  nonsense !  "  interrupted  Max  impatiently.  "  Equal 
opportunities  do  not  guarantee  equal  power  to  use 
them.  If  you  want  human  equality  —  like  that  of  the 
brutes  you  must  go  back  to  primitive  conditions,  when 
men  lived  in  caves  and  hollow  trees,  munched  nuts  with 
the  squirrels  and  ate  raw  meat  with  wolves  and  tigers. 
You  don't  want  to  be  a  man-monkey  again,  do  you  ?  And 
just  for  the  sake  of  having  nothing  in  sight,  superior  to 
a  man-monkey,  eh  ?  " 

"Well,  hardly!" 

"  But  that's  where  you'll  have  to  go  to  find  the  equality 
you're  aiming  at.  The  trouble  with  all  you  socialistic 
and  anarchistic  schemers  is  that  you  look  backward  and 
think  you  are  looking  forward ;  and  you  seem  to  be  ob- 
sessed by  the  idea  of  a  mythical  golden  age;  you  talk 
like  Don  Quixote  over  his  handful  of  acorns.  No,  Mr. 
Mayer,  you  can't  make  much  progress  with  your  back  to 


90  THE  TRELOARS 

the  future.  What  society  really  needs  is  not  solidarity, 
but  a  complete  emancipation  from  the  past  —  the  spread 
of  a  vigorous  individualism,  an  infusion  of  virility,  you 
want  everybody  to  hold  hands.  We  say  hands  off.  We 
are  suffering  more  than  anything  else  from  a  deadly  mi- 
asmatic sentimentality  that  is  always  bent  on  bolstering 
up  the  weak,  instead  of  fostering  the  strong." 

Max  did  not  finish;  the  door  of  the  adjoining  room 
suddenly  opened  and  closed  noisily,  and  he  left  the  room 
to  see  who  had  entered.  It  proved  to  be  another  indigent 
seeker  for  work  whom  Max  dismissed  rather  curtly; 
then  he  returned  to  Mayer  who  was  looking  depressed. 
Max  noticed  it  and  said : 

"  But  don't  suppose  that  your  opinions  disqualify  you 
for  working  with  me.  Social  reform  is  not  exactly  my 
hobby.  What  I  am  particularly  interested  in,  just  now, 
is  a  new  art,  a  new  literature,  new  music;  and  at  that  I 
don't  need  any  assistance,  at  present,  except  in  a  purely 
mechanical  way.  I  want  a  type-setter  and  a  proof- 
reader. I  am  not  going  to  publish  a  voluminous  maga- 
zine; but  just  a  few  sheets  once  a  week,  and  I  want  them 
to  be  original  enough  to  draw  down  on  me  the  con- 
ventional abuse  of  being  an  idiot  and  an  ass.  That  is 
always  the  cheerful  way  in  which  the  world  welcomes 
its  new  thinkers.  I  shall  be  very  much  disappointed,  if 
I  am  not  called  shocking  and  brutal.  Should  I  be  ap- 
plauded, I  should  know  that  I  had  fallen  hopelessly  into 
the  stupid  and  the  commonplace." 

Mayer's  face  lighted  up.  How  often  he  had  been 
called  an  ass  and  an  idiot  and  had  resented  it  indignantly ; 
but  now  the  opprobrious  terms  seemed  apotheosized,  and 
shone  with  a  sacred  light  like  the  halo  about  the  head  of 
a  Madonna. 

"  By  Jove !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  never  thought  of  that. 
It's  magnificent!  Your  smooth  pretty  banal  writer  who 
pats  society  on  the  back  carries  off  all  its  prizes;  your 
thinker  gets  all  its  kicks  and  thumps.  What  particular 
innovations  are  you  thinking  of  springing  on  the  pub- 
lic?" 


THE  TRELOARS  91 

"  In  literature,  I  propose  to  exalt  what  has  been  called 
by  our  hypocritical  civilization,  brute  force,  energy,  dar- 
ing, I  wish  to  introduce  into  literature  the  triumphs  of 
science,  of  steel,  of  electricity.  No  more  microscopic, 
psychological  analysis  —  the  eye  turned  in  on  the  navel  — 
but  the  eye  turned  outward  to  the  vast  resources  of  the 
world :  man's  joy  no  longer  the  feeble  product  of  enervat- 
ing fireside  sentimentalities,  but  joy  in  the  elemental 
forces  of  nature !  " 

"  That  is,"  said  Mayer  with  a  suspicious  twinkle  in  his 
eye,  "you  propose  to  revive  the  joy  of  barbarous  ages 
plus  the  automobile,  the  siege-gun,  and  the  aeroplane." 

"  Exactly !  only  I  don't  like  your  word  revive.  I  don't 
want  to  revive  anything.  I  want  to  create." 

"  Yes,  but  don't  you  see  that  you  aren't  creating,  that 
you  are  only  reviving  the  past  which  you  say  that  you 
hate  so  much?  You  aren't  getting  rid  of  it.  You  are 
only  putting  a  modern  spirit  into  it.  It's  Beowulf,  The 
Nibelungen  Lied,  The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents  with  a 
Zeppelin  attachment !  " 

Mayer  flushed  when  he  saw  an  ugly  scowl  on  Max's 
face,  but  he  could  not  have  resisted  the  thrust  even  at 
the  price  of  losing  his  job.  It  seemed  to  him  so  glori- 
ously absurd  to  be  piquing  one's  self  on  novelty  and 
originality  regarding  something  so  hoary  with  antiquity 
as  savagery ;  but  having  given  his  thrust  and  seeing  that 
it  was  effective,  he  was  content  with  applying  a  salve 
in  the  form  of  an  affectation  of  humility,  and  went  on : 

"  O  course,  I  am  unable  to  speak  with  any  judgment 
on  this  matter,  till  I  see  what  you  have  done.  My  mother 
used  to  say  that  '  fools  should  never  see  half  done 
work.' " 

"  Your  mother  was  right,"  said  Max  dryly,  as  he  drew 
out  his  watch.  "  Suppose  you  come  around  Monday 
morning  about  nine  o'clock.  I'll  set  you  to  work,  if  you 
are  willing  to  begin  on  $2.50  a  day.  The  hours  won't 
be  long.  It's  pretty  fair  pay  for  the  time  you'll  put  in. 
What  do  you  say  to  it  ?  " 


92  THE  TRELOARS 

"  It's  not  very  much." 

"  No,  but  it  is  all  I  can  give  at  present.  This  venture 
means  nothing  but  expense  to  me  and  no  profit,  for  a  long 
time." 

"All  right,  I'll  come  around,  Monday.  Good  after- 
noon, sir." 

"  Good  afternoon !  " 

Left  alone  again,  Max  thrust  his  hands  into  his  coat 
pockets,  settled  himself  in  his  chair,  and  stretched  his 
legs  out.  A  feeling  of  irritation  and  depression  came 
over  him,  as  he  recalled  the  experiences  of  the  afternoon. 
He  began  to  suspect  that  he,  too,  belonged  to  this  vast 
army  of  malcontents,  men  of  ticklish  and  umbrageous 
sensibility,  who  attribute  their  failures  to  the  lack  of  due 
appreciation  from  their  fellow  men,  who  nurse  their 
grievances  with  pity  for  themselves,  and  hatred  and 
contempt  for  the  rest  of  the  world.  Without  an  assured 
income  to  save  him  from  want,  he,  too,  might  have  been 
in  as  beggarly  a  situation  as  any  of  those  who  had  come 
to  him  for  help ;  then  in  self-defense,  he  began  to  espouse 
their  cause  to  himself.  They  were  the  victims  of  con- 
ventions, the  individualists  who  wished  to  be  free  to  live 
their  life  as  it  seemed  good  to  them,  and  not  as  it  seemed 
good  to  their  neighbor.  They  had  entered  into  no  social 
compact  of  their  own  free  will,  and  yet  were  held  re- 
sponsible for  the  fulfillment  of  it.  They  had  been  put  to 
school  to  the  art  and  literature  of  a  past  with  which  they 
had  nothing  in  common;  their  will  had  been  weakened, 
their  emotions  perverted.  They  were  wholly  unfitted  for 
the  brutal  struggle  for  existence  which  goes  on  in  the 
society  into  which  they  were  born,  and  were  inevitably 
pushed  to  the  wall.  It  was  for  them  and  for  himself 
that  he  was  throwing  down  the  gauntlet  to  society.  The 
Dawn  was  approaching.  Arrived  at  this  point  of  his 
meditations,  Max  rose,  yawned,  rubbed  his  eyes,  put  on 
his  hat,  and  went  out  to  get  something  to  eat.  In  spite 
of  his  theory  that  the  joy  of  life  is  perfect  liberty,  he 
was  not  getting  any  appreciable  amount  of  joy  out  of  his 
liberty  at  present. 


THE  TRELOARS  93 


CHAPTER  X 

DICK  had  not  failed  to  return  to  the  theater  night  after 
night  to  witness  Nita's  playing.  No  matter  how  irritat- 
ing his  day's  work  had  been,  this  charming  actress  never 
failed  to  dissipate  his  irritation  and  restore  him  to  his 
best  self.  If  he  left  the  office  feeling  that  he  was  ex- 
pected to  stoop  to  the  stature  of  those  with  whom  he 
was  thrown,  no  sooner  was  he  in  her  presence  than  the 
chains  broke,  he  stooped  no  longer,  but  stood  upright 
with  his  equals,  a  free  man  in  the  presence  of  true  free- 
dom. 

He  longed  to  tell  her  how  grateful  he  was  for  her  in- 
spiring influence,  and  how  much  she  meant  to  him  in  his 
struggles  with  unfamiliar  tasks;  but  he  had  not  been 
able  to  see  her  alone  again  since  the  memorable  night 
of  their  first  meeting.  She  always  had  a  little  coterie 
about  her,  and  he  had  not  mustered  sufficient  courage 
to  write  a  request  for  a  special  interview,  but  if  the  op- 
portunity to  meet  her  alone  did  not  offer  itself  soon,  he 
meant  to  do  that.  As  it  was,  the  second  week-end  had 
come  around  and  he  was  starting  to  Berkeley  to  spend 
Sunday  at  home. 

At  the  ferry,  he  looked  over  the  crowd,  searching  Max 
Gietmann's  face,  knowing  that  Max  would  feel  his  invi- 
tation to  go  out  home  with  him  a  standing  one.  But  he 
saw  no  familiar  face  in  the  hurrying,  jostling  throng  that 
pressed  through  the  wicket  gates.  He  felt  a  little  re- 
lieved at  not  finding  him ;  he  preferred  to  spend  his  Sun- 
day at  home  quite  alone  with  the  family.  The  Parkers 
would  be  over  in  the  evening,  of  course,  since  they  had 
not  been  over  the  Sunday  of  the  preceding  week.  He 
would  be  glad  to  see  them,  for  they  seemed  a  part  of 
the  family,  but  he  could  not  make  Max  fit  in  so  familiarly, 
since  his  return  from  abroad.  However,  that  did  not 
trouble  him. 

How  lovely  the  broad  blue  expanse  of  the  water,  so 


94  THE  TRELOARS 

tremulously  responsive  to  every  change  of  color  in  the 
sky  above  it!  And  the  long  undulating  shoreline  with 
its  yellow  sands  and  high  green  sloping  background  — 
how  often  he  had  looked  at  it,  yet  never  till  to-day,  had 
he  realized  how  beautiful  it  was;  and  with  the  realiza- 
tion and  the  intuition  of  its  cause,  he  felt  the  hot  blood 
surging  over  his  face;  and  because  he  was  essentially 
poet  and  idealist,  there  mingled  with  his  natural  emotion 
that  temperamental  excess  which  carries  acute  joy  to  the 
verge  of  sadness.  His  eyes  were  moist,  and  he  kept  his 
face  steadily  turned  towards  the  sea.  He  feared  to  look 
round,  lest  he  should  meet  some  one  whom  he 
knew  and  be  obliged  to  try  to  explain  satisfactorily  the 
emotion  which  he  could  not  conceal. 

He  was  glad  of  the  long  walk  that  lay  between  himself 
and  home,  at  the  end  of  the  car  line ;  for  he  had  es- 
pecially asked  that  no  one  should  meet  him  with  the 
carriage,  for  he  needed  the  exercise  of  the  walk.  To- 
day he  felt  that  he  needed  time  in  which  to  compose  him- 
self so  that  he  might  meet  the  family  as  if  all  his  world 
were  still  where  he  had  left  it.  He  succeeded  so  ad- 
mirably that  the  brightness  of  his  eyes,  the  flush  on  his 
cheek,  the  hint  of  a  tremulous  break  in  his  fine,  strong, 
young  voice,  were  to  Margaret  the  touching  signs  of  his 
gladness  to  be  at  home  again. 

She  was  coming  down  the  Tunnel  Road  to  meet  him, 
not  far  from  the  gate,  and  they  walked  back  home  arm 
in  arm. 

"  O,  Dick,  it  has  been  the  longest  week,  longer  than 
last  week.  I  don't  know  why;  but  it  seemed  to  me  that 
Saturday  night  would  never  come  round,  but  here  it  is, 
and  you  are  with  us  again.  Has  it  seemed  unusually 
long  to  you  ?  " 

"  Months !  "  exclaimed  Dick,  emphatically,  and  he  was 
speaking  the  truth,  for  when  new  sensations  and  new 
emotions  are  crowded  into  our  days,  they  seem  to 
lengthen  them  enormously. 

"  You  darling  boy !  "  Margaret  pressed  the  arm  through 


THE  TRELOARS  95 

which  she  had  slipped  her  own,  and  looked  up  into  his 
face  with  pride,  and  delight ;  then  she  said  gently,  "  Do 
you  know,  sometimes  I  think  that  such  an  intense  love 
as  that  which  binds  me  to  you  is  not  altogether  wise ;  and 
yet  how  magnificent  it  is !  But  it  makes  me  too  depend- 
ent on  you  for  my  happiness.  It  is  as  if  I  had  delivered 
it  all  into  your  keeping  and  it  might  be  ship-wrecked  with 
you  in  a  moment.  I  have  learned  so  much  about  myself 
this  week  that  I  didn't  know  before,  and  some  of  the 
things  are  not  at  all  to  my  credit." 

"  Then  you've  been  making  some  mistakes  in  your 
lessons,  Margaret.  What  have  you  learned  about  your- 
self that  is  not  to  your  credit  ?  " 

"  That  I  am  deceitful  —  that  I  can  say  one  thing  and 
mean  another." 

"  Well,  that's  a  woman's  privilege,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  It's  not  my  privilege.  I  like  to  be  honest.  But  you 
know  when  you  told  me  last  week  how  busy  you  were, 
I  made  you  promise  not  to  write  to  me  this  week,  because 
I  was  afraid  to  take  up  any  of  your  time.  Well,  I  stood 
it  nobly  till  Thursday,  and  then  I  got  so  hungry  for  a 
word  from  you,  just  a  line  to  tell  me  you  were  thinking 
of  me,  that  I  kept  wishing  with  all  my  heart  that  you 
would  break  your  promise  and  write  to  me  anyway." 

"  Ha !  ha !  And  what  would  you  have  said,  if  I  had 
done  it?" 

"  I  should  have  scolded  you,  of  course,  but  very,  very 
sweetly,  just  enough  to  encourage  you  to  do  it  again. 
Don't  you  see  what  a  dastardly  double-dealer  I  am? 
And  that  is  not  all.  I  began  to  get  nastily  suspicious  yes- 
terday. I  said  to  myself,  '  Now  if  he  really  loved  me  as 
much  as  I  love  him,  he  couldn't  help  writing  to  me  in 
answer  to  that  letter  which  I  wrote  him,  Tuesday.'  You 
did  get  it,  didn't  you?" 

"  Yes,  I  did,  dear ;  and  it  was  such  a  bit  of  sunshine 
to  me  that  I  was  really  tempted  to  sit  down  and  tell  you 
how  thankful  I  was  for  it;  but  you  know  you  reminded 
me  in  it  again  of  my  promise  not  to  write,  so  I  wasn't  go- 
ing to  be  tempted  to  break  it." 


96  THE  TRELOARS 

"  You  should  have  yielded  to  the  temptation,  Dick.  In 
matters  of  love,  it  isn't  a  sin;  on  the  contrary,  it  was  a 
crime  against  love  not  to  do  it.  Now,  I  am  going  to 
give  you  a  bit  of  advice,  for  the  sake  of  the  future  Mrs. 
Dick,  who  I  hope  is  still  an  unweaned  infant,  but  who  is 
sure  to  turn  up  some  day.  If  ever  the  woman  whom 
you  are  to  love,  as  you  love  no  one  else,  tells  you  not  to 
do  a  thing  that  you  know  will  give  her  pleasure,  Dick, 
don't  for  a  minute  put  off  doing  that  very  thing,  if  it  is 
within  the  realm  of  possibility  to  do  it.  She  may  vow 
that  she  won't  forgive  you,  if  you  do;  but  ten  to  one, 
she  won't  forgive  you,  if  you  don't.  There!  those  are 
the  incredible  things  that  I  have  found  out  about  my- 
self." 

Dick  laughed  heartily. 

"They  are  adorable  things,  Margaret;  they  bring  you 
down  from  the  summits  of  perfection,  and  set  you  firmly 
on  the  ground  where  the  rest  of  us  walk.  After  this, 
you  shall  have  your  letter  every  week." 

"  No,  Dick,  you  mustn't  think  of  such  a  thing ! "  she 
protested,  and  then  they  both  laughed  again  at  the  ab- 
surdity of  her  protest  in  the  face  of  her  confession,  then 
Margaret  said : 

"  Now,  you  must  tell  me  all  about  what  Mr.  Cressy 
said  of  your  article;  you  know  you  didn't  say  anything 
about  it  last  week.  We  had  so  many  other  things  to 
talk  of.  Of  course,  he  liked  it  immensely." 

"  Not  in  the  least." 

"  What !     You  don't  mean  to  say " 

"Yes,  I  do;  but  let's  wait  till  we  get  to  the  house. 
Father  will  want  to  hear  about  that,  too,  and  there's  no 
use  telling  it  over  twice.  Let  me  listen  to  you,  now ; 
that's  such  a  treat  to  me.  What  news  have  you  to  tell 
me?" 

"  There  isn't  much  to  tell.  Dolly  and  her  father  were 
over  Thursday  night.  Dolly  told  me  that  her  father  had 
proposed  sending  her  to  college,  but  that  she  had  per- 
suaded him  that  she  is  her  own  best  teacher.  I  am  not 
sure  that  she  is  wrong,  are  you  ?  " 


THE  TRELOARS  97 

"  No.  Dolly  is  really  a  very  exceptional  girl.  Are 
they  coming  over  this  evening?  I  haven't  seen  them  for 
two  weeks  or  more." 

"  No,  not  to-night.  I  was  selfish.  I  wanted  you  all 
to  myself  the  first  evening.  They'll  be  over  to-morrow 
to  dinner.  Have  you  seen  Max,  again?  " 

"  Not  this  week.  He  is  very  busy  getting  ready  to 
bring  out  The  Dawn." 

"  The  Dawn! "  repeated  Margaret  with  a  touch  of  mel- 
ancholy irony  in  her  voice.  "  To  you  and  to  me,  The 
Darkness  or  The  Eclipse  would  be  a  more  suitable  name. 
Poor  Max !  I  suppose  we  seem  so  old-fashioned  and  ' 
inanely  moral  to  him,  and  he  seems  to  us  so  absurdly 
bent  on  being  uncommon  that  he  is  ridiculous,  too,  in  an 
ugly  and  dangerous  way.  I  wonder  if  it  is  possible  to 
bring  him  around  to  a  saner  point  of  view.  I  always 
think  there  is  hope,  where  there  is  violence,  because  the 
violent  by  nature  is  short-lived.  It  is  the  attitude  of  in- 
difference or  of  persiflage  which  seems  hopeless  to  me  be- 
cause there  is  no  foundation  of  real  feeling  to  work  on. 
Max  is  not  a  light  and  careless  iconoclast.  He  is  a  hater, 
and  he  hates,  because  he  is  unhappy  and  because  there  is 
a  capacity  for  love  in  him." 

There  flashed  through  Dick's  mind  again  the  suspicion 
which  had  troubled  him,  once  before;  and  the  question 
of  Max's  relations  to  Margaret  was  on  his  tongue's  end, 
but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  speak  of  it. 

"  I  think  you  are  right  about  Max,"  he  replied,  "  yet 
I  don't  see  why  he  has  any  particular  cause  to  be  un- 
happy. So  far  as  I  know  he  has  good  health,  and  a 
settled  income,  and  no  vexatious  ties." 

"Yes,"  answered  Margaret  vaguely,  "but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  set  up  the  same  standard  of  happiness  for  every- 
body. It  takes  so  little  to  make  some  people  happy,  and 
such  a  great  deal  to  satisfy  others.  You  and  I  can  be 
happy  if  we  only  have  each  other.  Isn't  it  good  to  be  to- 
gether again  ?  " 

They  walked  on  a  few  moments  in  silence  and  there 


98  THE  TRELOARS 

was  a  critical  moment  in  that  silence  in  which  Dick's 
secret  rose  to  his  lips,  but  the  inner  tumult  was  still  too 
great  to  make  it  possible  for  him  to  speak  with  any 
degree  of  serenity,  so  he  said  nothing.  It  was  the  first 
time  in  his  life  that  he  had  concealed  anything  of  import- 
ance from  Margaret,  and  that  he  could  do  it  now,  proved 
the  intensity  of  his  emotion.  It  is  not  of  the  deepest 
secrets  of  our  hearts  that  we  can  speak  easily. 

Just  at  the  turn  of  the  path  where  the  whole  house  be- 
came visible,  Dick  saw  his  father  walking  slowly  along 
the  garden  path,  his  head  bent  forward,  his  hands  behind 
him,  the  left  hand  clasping  the  wrist  of  his  right  hand 
in  which  was  a  book,  so  held  that  his  forefinger  was  thrust 
in  at  the  page  where  he  had  been  reading. 

"  There's  father,"  exclaimed  Dick.  "  What  book  is  he 
poring  over  now  ?  " 

"  Tolstoi,  again.  The  Ethical  Society  has  asked  him  to 
read  a  paper  on  Tolstoi  at  the  next  meeting.  He  has 
been  reading  his  paper  to  me  as  far  as  he  has  gone,  but  I 
told  him  that  he  is  writing  an  apotheosis  of  Tolstoi  in- 
stead of  a  criticism." 

"  I  dare  say  he  is.  Dad  always  forgets  that  Tolstoi  is 
big  enough  to  have  faults  without  their  obscuring  his 
greatness.  In  spite  of  all  Tolstoi's  parade  of  humility  — 
the  unalterable  core  of  the  man  is  over-weening  pride 
and  ambition.  He  covers  it  all  over  with  beautful,  soft, 
exquisite,  tender  sentiments,  but  it  is  there;  and  he 
would  not  be  the  Titan  he  is  without  that  hard  unalterable 
core  in  him.  That  is  what  made  him  dream  of  being  the 
founder  of  a  new  religion.  But  no  religion  was  ever 
founded  successfully  on  the  ideal  of  an  exaggerated  in- 
dividualism." 

"  Why,  Dick,  I  thought  you  admired  Tolstoi !  " 

"  So  I  do,  but  with  my  eyes  open,  not  shut.  Hello, 
Daddy ! "  he  called  out  cheerily,  for  the  two  were  now  in 
range  of  Treloar's  hearing.  He  had  not  noticed  their 
approach,  and  turned  round  suddenly,  unclasping  his 
hand  to  extend  it  in  greeting  to  his  son. 


THE  TRELOARS  99 

"  Hello,  my  boy !  Glad  to  see  you.  We  miss  you 
among  us,  especially  at  dinner  time.  Have  you  brought 
a  good  appetite  with  you  ?  " 

"  First  rate !  Margaret  has  spoiled  me  for  restaurants 
and  boarding  houses." 

"  And  she's  done  her  best  to  redouble  the  spoiling 
to-night.  She  has  remembered  all  the  things  that  you 
like  best,  and  the  rest  of  us  who  don't  happen  to  agree 
with  you  are  going  to  come  out  at  the  small  end  of  the 
horn.  Go  on  in,  Dick,  and  get  ready.  We're  a  little  late. 
I'm  as  hungry  as  a  wolf,  myself." 

They  went  into  the  house.  Catherine  was  putting  the 
last  dainty  touches  to  the  table,  a  task  which  usually  fell 
to  Margaret,  but  Catherine  had  taken  it  to-night  in  order 
to  let  Margaret  go  to  meet  Dick,  and  she  looked  very 
pretty  in  her  soft  white  dress,  and  she  kissed  Dick 
heartily.  After  dinner,  the  family  gathered  in  the  living- 
room,  and  then  Dick  told  the  story  of  his  experiences  as 
a  journalist. 

"  I  dare  say,"  said  Dick,  "  that  I  began  with  a  very 
confident  air,  and  an  exasperating  cock-sureness,  but  I 
finished  just  as  surely  with  my  head  under  my  wings  and 
my  tail  feathers  very  much  bedraggled.  Cressy  and  I 
are  as  different  as  two  men  possibly  can  be.  He  is  a  sort 
of  M.  Homais,  journalist,  instead  of  pharmacist.  He  has 
the  same  utter  contempt  for  idealism  in  any  form,  the 
same  asinine  conviction  that  he  represents  the  acme  of 
good  sense.  He  has  an  insufferably  condescending  air 
with  me,  always  telling  me  that  in  his  youth  he  was  just 
such  a  young  fellow  as  I,  and  insinuates  that  if  I  develop 
normally,  some  day  I  shall  have  the  honor  of  being  just 
like  him  —  from  which  honor  may  the  good  Lord  deliver 
me!" 

Margaret  listened  restlessly,  flushed  with  indignation, 
wondering  how  it  was  possible  for  any  one  to  treat 
Dick  in  that  manner.  Treloar,  on  the  contrary,  listened 
with  an  amused  smile,  interrupting  the  smoking  of  his 
cigar  from  time  to  time  to  laugh  heartily.  He  had  so 


ioo  THE  TRELOARS 

long  been  predicting  the  disastrous  influences  of  material- 
ism that  he  felt  the  vivid  satisfaction  of  a  successful 
prophet,  even  at  the  expense  of  his  own  personal  disaster 
in  its  fulfillment. 

"  What  else  could  you  expect  ?  "  he  asked  at  the  con- 
clusion of  Dick's  story.  "  Haven't  I  always  told  you  that 
if  you  take  away  from  the  masses  the  restraining  influ- 
ence of  religion  —  the  hope  of  immortality,  the  belief  in 
a  compensatory  justice  that  will  give  a  meaning  to  the 
struggles  and  sorrows  of  this  life,  you  take  away  from 
them  every  incentive  to  endure  with  manly  fortitude 
the  evils  of  life.  They  feel  that  if  life  is  only  a  conscious 
moment  between  two  eternities  of  extinction,  then  it 
should  be  crowded  with  all  possible  joys,  and  they  are 
right.  That  is  the  only  consistent  attitude  to  life  from 
that  point  of  view.  The  coarsest  Epicurean  with  his 
'  Eat,  drink,  and  be  merry ! '  is  wiser  than  the  ascetic 
who  refuses  to  live  while  he  is  still  alive." 

"  O,  father,"  protested  Margaret.  "  That  is  too  sweep- 
ing an  assertion.  Values  are  not  determinable  by  dura- 
tion. The  beauty  of  a  perfect  rose  is  not  destroyed  by 
the  fact  that  it  lasts  but  a  day  or  two,  and  the  beauty 
of  a  life  dominated  by  self-mastery  and  generous  regard 
for  others  is  just  as  undeniably  beautiful  and  desirable, 
as  if  it  were  eternal;  and  it  is  the  very  brevity  of  life 
that  inspired  that  noble  sentiment,  '  Work  while  it  is  day, 
for  the  night  cometh  when  no  man  can  work ! '  I  think 
it  a  dangerous,  a  very  dangerous  doctrine  to  spread 
abroad  that  morality  has  no  other  sanction  or  obligation 
than  the  belief  in  immortality  —  although  I  firmly  believe 
in  immortality,  of  course,  just  as  you  do." 

"  What  do  you  know  about  values  in  life  ?  "  replied 
her  father  with  a  tingling  fervor  in  his  voice  that  showed 
how  deeply  in  earnest  he  was.  "  You  who  have  lived 
sheltered  from  the  fierce  tempests  of  passion.  The  very 
thing  that  you  have  said  about  values  not  depending  on 
duration  makes  a  man  at  a  crucial  moment  feel  that  he 
may  concentrate  years  of  tame  and  colorless  life  in  the 


THE  TRELOARS  101 

ecstasy  of  a  moment,  and  if  no  larger  thought,  no  lumin- 
ous vision  of  the  grandeur  of  his  destiny  is  to  hold  him 
back,  why  should  he  lose  the  glory  of  an  hour  for  the 
nauseating  insipidity  of  a  few  tame  crawling  years? 
Nonsense !  speak  of  life  when  you  know  the  heights  and 
depths  of  it.  Don't  for  a  moment  think  that  you  can  put 
out  the  blaze  of  a  burning  world  with  a  little  pitcher  of 
cool  spring  water,  no  matter  how  cool  and  how  clear  it 
may  be.  I  doubt  if  you  ever  had  a  wicked  thought  in 
your  life.  I  doubt  if  you  ever  had  a  stronger  temptation 
than  the  doubt  as  to  whether  you  should  let  Dick  have 
one  more  piece  of  rich  cake,  when  you  knew  that  he  had 
eaten  too  much,  already." 

Margaret  laughed,  but  the  laugh  was  rather  faint. 
She  had  heard  her  father  repeatedly  thrash  out  this  ques- 
tion with  Dr.  Parker,  and  reflecting  over  it  alone,  and  re- 
membering the  doubts  that  often  assailed  Dick,  she  had 
come  to  feel  that  the  supreme  safety  in  morals  lies  in  the 
conviction  that  right  is  right,  no  matter  what  the  con- 
sequences are;  and  that  the  Christian  code  of  morals, 
quite  independent  of  their  origin  or  the  beliefs  attached 
to  their  practice  is  the  best  for  man  in  his  social  relations, 
so  she  answered  quietly : 

"  It  is  true,  father,  that  I  do  not  know  life  as  you  do, 
but  I  do  not  think  that  it  is  necessary  to  put  your  own 
hand  in  the  fire  to  know  the  result  of  the  action;  but 
leaving  that  side  of  the  question  alone,  I  have  too  firm  a 
faith  in  your  own  good  sense  and  morality  to  believe  that 
the  decline  of  your  faith  would  be  followed  by  your 
abandonment  of  your  principles  of  right  living." 

"  Then  that's  just  exactly  where  you  are  entirely  mis- 
taken," was  the  emphatic  reply.  Treloar  would  have  de- 
clared himself  capable  of  committing  any  enormity  rather 
than  abandon  what  he  considered  as  the  legitimate  conclu- 
sion of  his  argument.  "  I  live  my  life  consistently,  ac- 
cording to  my  convictions.  Do  I  build  a  house  to  turn 
round  and  tear  it  to  pieces  ?  Did  the  architect  of  the  uni- 
verse create  my  soul  for  the  purpose  of  destroying  it  ?  If 


102  THE  TRELOARS 

I  thought  so,  life  would  have  absolutely  no  value  to  me, 
no  meaning,  and  I  should  live  it  in  an  entirely  different 
manner  from  what  I  do  now." 

"  O,  no,  you  wouldn't,  father,"  persisted  Margaret. 
"You  would  be  like  that  Russian  peasant  Dr.  Parker 
spoke  of,  you  would  keep  on  plowing." 

Philip  Treloar  gave  his  fine  gray  head  a  vigorous  shake, 
and  there  passed  over  his  keen  intellectual  face  an  ex- 
pression of  acute  despair  and  passionate  negation. 

"  Isn't  it  strange,"  he  burst  out  in  a  sonorous  voice, 
"that  a  man  may  live  all  his  life  with  his  family,  and 
yet  be  a  stranger  among  them.  A  magnificent  reply  that 
was,  wasn't  it?  An  asinine  reply  —  the  reply  of  a  brute 
beast  that  had  ceased  to  be  a  man.  It  shows  that  the 
peasant  had  become  a  wooden-headed  slave  instead  of  an 
intelligent  human  being.  If  he  had  had  a  spark  of  hu- 
manity in  him,  he  would  have  left  his  plow  in  the  middle 
of  the  field  and  spent  his  last  day  gratifying  all  his  desires 
in  so  far  as  he  was  able." 

"  O,  bosh !  Daddy,"  remonstrated  Dick.  "  Now  you 
are  like  my  Homais  journalist  who  will  give  the  masses  no 
credit  for  moral  insight,  no  ideality,  no  aim  in  life  except 
to  accumulate  wealth,  no  recreations  except  sensual  pleas- 
ures." 

"That  is  where  your  Homais  is  right.  The  masses 
are  in  a  state  of  revolt  and  bewilderment.  Science  has 
destroyed  their  religion,  they  are  without  faith  in  any- 
thing but  the  sensation  of  the  moment,  they  have  no  con- 
ception of  anything  but  what  they  can  perceive  through 
their  senses.  How  is  it  possible  for  them  to  value  the 
super-sensual  ?  " 

"  And  now  that  we  have  got  past  that  second  piece  of 
cake,"  said  Margaret,  rising  and  going  to  the  piano, 
"  don't  you  think  it  is  time  for  a  little  music  ?  Come, 
father,  do  play  for  Dick  that  exquisite  little  thing  which 
you  improvised  yesterday." 

Treloar  protested  loudly  against  being  turned  from  his 
beloved  argument,  but  after  restating  it  in  what  he 


THE  TRELOARS  103 

thought  was  an  irrefutable  way,  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
persuaded  to  sit  down  to  the  piano,  and  after  running 
his  fingers  aimlessly  over  the  keys,  he  found  at  last  a 
tongue  in 'them  for  the  thoughts  that  melody  alone  can 
express.  He  had  loved  music  all  his  life,  and  had  found 
in  it  an  outlet  for  the  deeply  emotional  side  of  his  nature, 
unconsciously  carrying  out  Wagner's  theory  that  with 
fullness  of  life,  art  is  superfluous,  and  that  art  begins 
where  life  ceases. 

As  Dick  listened  to  the  music,  watching  his  father's 
clean-cut  profile  in  the  softened  light  which  filled  the 
room,  he  marveled  again,  as  he  had  often  done  before,  at 
the  inextinguishable  youthfulness  of  the  man's  soul,  his 
eager  activity,  turning  as  naturally  to  light  and  warmth 
as  the  groping  plant  germinating  in  the  darkness  of  the 
soil ;  his  versatility ;  the  wide  range  of  his  intellectual  in- 
terests;—  how  was  it  that  he  had  not  made  his  mark 
upon  the  thought  of  his  century?  Had  his  intellect  been 
inquisitive  rather  than  creative?  Had  he  been  tempted 
to  run  here  and  there,  turning  over  other  men's  acquisi- 
tions, and  making  them  his  own,  instead  of  delving 
within  himself,  and  transmuting  his  own  experiences  into 
living  thought  ?  For  he  had  lived,  and  how  he  must  have 
loved !  Dick  leaned  towards  his  father,  his  heart  beating 
faster.  He  felt  sure  that  his  father  would  understand 
him,  were  he  to  tell  him  all  his  thoughts  and  feelings. 
He  began  to  wish  him  to  see  this  woman  who  was  mean- 
ing so  much  to  him.  It  suddenly  occurred  to  him  that  he 
would  make  up  a  little  family  party,  invite  Dolly  and  her 
father  to  join  them,  and  take  a  box  at  the  Oakland  The- 
ater for  the  next  Tuesday  night. 

"  Daddy,  that's  fine ! "  he  said,  rising  and  patting  his 
father  on  the  shoulder  when  he  had  finished  playing. 
"  I'd  rather  have  the  memory  of  your  being  able  to  do  a 
thing  like  that,  than  be  assured  you  had  millions  to  leave 
me.  So  you  see  after  all,  I  am  not  so  hopelessly  sunk  in 
materialism." 

"  Perhaps,  not  yet ;  but  it's  not  easy  to  escape  its  in- 
fluence, these  days." 


104  THE  TRELOARS 


CHAPTER  XI 

IT  was  a  bright  sunny  Sabbath  morning.  Dolly  Parker 
awoke  early  to  the  twittering  of  birds  and  leaving  her 
bed  went  to  the  open  window  where  a  climbing  rose  sent 
the  odor  of  its  fragrant  blossoms  into  the  room.  She 
looked  up  at  the  blue  sky  and  then  at  the  yellow  hills, 
and  suddenly  felt  so  wide  awake  that  going  back  to  bed 
was  impossible,  and  going  out  for  an  early  morning  walk 
was  the  finest  thing  in  the  world. 

Her  father  was  entering  the  dining-room  when  she 
came  in  from  a  ramble  along  the  ravine,  and  she  greeted 
him  with  the  jubilant,  boastful  cry: 

"  I  was  up  the  first  this  morning !  " 

"What  of  it?"  was  the  imperturbable  answer.  "It 
doesn't  make  so  much  difference  when  you  get  up,  as 
what  you  amount  to  after  you  are  up.  Maybe  you  would 
have  been  just  as  well  off  in  bed." 

"  Do  you  think  pleasure  and  beauty  amount  to  nothing? 
I've  had  such  a  good  time,  and  aren't  these  beautiful  ? " 
she  asked,  holding  up  her  flowers  and  grasses.  She  put 
them  into  a  glass  bowl  on  the  table,  and  then  stepping 
back  to  get  the  effect  of  them,  said: 

"Aren't  they  so  fresh  and  morning-like  with  the  dew 
still  on  them  ?  " 

"  Yes,  they're  pretty,  but  what  got  into  you  that  you 
were  up  so  early  this  morning?  Didn't  you  know  it  was 
Sunday?" 

"Didn't  I  know  it?  Of  course  I  did,  and  that  we're 
going  over  to  the  Treloars  for  dinner  to-day.  Dick 
came  home  last  night.  I  can  imagine  how  Margaret  is 
beaming,  can't  you  ?  " 

"  If  she's  beaming  any  more  than  you,  then  she  has  a 
monopoly  on  beaming,"  answered  her  father,  sitting  down 
to  the  table,  as  Dolly  touched  the  bell. 

In  a  moment  Hannah,  the  maid,  appeared  with  the 
breakfast,  consisting  of  oatmeal  porridge,  rich  cream, 
buttered  toast,  and  coffee. 


THE  TRELOARS  105 

Dolly  passed  her  bowl  to  her  father  to  be  filled,  and 
smiled  when  she  received  it. 

"  Isn't  it  funny,"  she  said,  "  Dick  seems  to  me  just  like 
my  own  brother.  I've  really  missed  him,  knowing  that  he 
was  away  from  home  haven't  you  ?  " 

"  I  can't  say  that  I  have,  I  don't  miss  people's  being 
away  in  somebody  else's  house.  That  is  a  stretch  of 
imagination  I  might  have  been  capable  of  at  your  age, 
but  now " 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders  expressively,  and  put  his 
cup  to  his  lips. 

"  O,  Daddy,"  protested  Dolly,  "  when  I  am  your  age 
I  mean  to  have  all  my  wits  about  me,  and  all  my  feelings 
fresh  as  now.  Not  a  bit  of  the  gilt  edge  is  to  be  rubbed 
off  them." 

"  But  they  will  be  tarnished,  Dolly,"  said  her  father, 
setting  down  his  cup  and  wiping  his  lips  with  his  napkin. 
"  Another  piece  of  toast,  please." 

"  You  expect  me  to  believe  that  ?  " 

"  No,  not  now.     I  am  just  telling  you." 

"  So  that  you  can  say,  '  I  told  you  so,'  when  I  come  to 
the  tarnished  age?" 

"  I  guess  so." 

Dolly  carefully  gathered  into  her  spoon  the  last  drop 
of  the  rich  cream  in  her  bowl,  and  having  disposed  of  it, 
pushed  away  the  empty  dish  with  rather  unnecessary 
vigor,  as  she  answered. 

"  Honestly,  father,  if  I  believed  that,  I  should  not  want 
to  live  past  the  high  pulse  beat  stage.  To  grow  old  out- 
side is  bad  enough  —  but  —  inside,  too.  Ugh !  " 

Dolly  shuddered  dramatically  as  if  the  thermometer 
had  suddenly  dropped  below  zero,  and  she  bit  into  her 
toast  with  a  savage  little  gesture  as  if  crunching  an  im- 
aginary foe.  Then  lifting  her  cup  of  coffee  as  high  as 
her  head,  she  said : 

"  Here's  to  the  pulse  beats,  and  may  they  beat  warm 
and  high  under  the  black  veil  of  grief  and  the  white  snows 
of  age!" 


io6  THE  TRELOARS 

As  her  father  went  calmly  on  with  his  breakfast  with- 
out paying  any  attention  to  her  affected  tirade,  she  called 
out  in  her  imperious  way: 

"  Come,  Daddy,  come,  drink  to  the  toast.  You  are  not 
going  to  be  let  off,  you  know." 

"  Dolly,  you  are  ridiculous." 

"  Father,  the  same  to  you  with  all  due  respect." 

With  that  she  touched  her  cup  against  his,  spilling  a 
little  of  her  coffee  in  her  eagerness. 

"  There,  now !  See  what  you've  done  with  your  fool- 
ishness. Be  sure  you  tell  Hannah  that  it  was  not  I  who 
soiled  her  clean  table-cloth." 

"  Certainly !  "  answered  Dolly,  slipping  her  napkin  un- 
der the  cloth.  "  I  bear  all  my  own  burdens.  But  you 
are  very  hard  to  educate.  The  trouble  is  that  you  want 
to  reduce  everything  to  a  system,  Daddy,  an  inflexible 
system,  and  people  can't  be  systematized,  even  in  an  in- 
sane asylum.  The  straight  jackets  are  of  a  different  size, 
aren't  they?" 

"  O,  yes,  you  won't  have  any  difficulty  in  finding  a  fit, 
Dolly." 

"  Well,  I  call  that  a  poor,  tasteless,  decrepit,  thin,  vine- 
gary old  joke  and  it  reflects  on  you  from  all  points  of 
the  compass.  Am  I  not  your  offspring?  Aren't  you 
ashamed  ?  " 

"Of  my  offspring?" 

"  No !  Of  your  joke,  if  such  a  poor  peezy-weezy, 
asthmatical  thing  can  be  called  a  joke." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  Like  my  offspring,  it's  a  poor  thing, 
but  my  own." 

"  That's  better,  even  if  it  is  borrowed  from  Touch- 
stone. You're  improving !  " 

Dolly  loved  her  father  with  passionate  devotion,  but 
she  had  not  escaped  the  influence  of  Margaret  Treloar's 
idealism.  It  spoke  to  her  quick  bright  mind  and  im- 
petuous young  heart  with  a  more  powerful,  more  per- 
suasive voice  than  her  father's  calm  reason:  for  youth 


THE  TRELOARS  107 

is  not  so  much  in  need  of  reason,  as  of  a  large  boundless 
faith. 

"  Hello,  Dick !  Mighty  glad  to  see  you  What  do  you 
think  this  girl  of  mine  asked  me,  to-day  ?  " 

"  I  haven't  the  slightest  idea,"  said  Dick,  smiling  at 
Dolly  as  he  shook  hands  with  her  father. 

"  She  has  been  asking  if  I  didn't  miss  you." 

"  That's  lovely  of  her,  and  I  feel  very  grateful  to  her 
for  thinking  that  I  can  be  missed." 

Dolly's  face  was  crimson,  as  Dick  held  out  his  hand 
to  her,  and  the  nimble  tongue  that  had  chattered  like  a 
magpie  all  day  long,  and  could  not  be  quiet  even  with  an 
effort,  was  as  mute  now  as  the  floor  beneath  her  feet. 
It  was  Margaret  who  came  to  her  rescue,  by  calling  at- 
tention to  herself,  saying  that  she  did  not  know  just  how 
to  explain  a  feeling  which  evidently  belonged  especially 
to  women ;  it  was  a  kind  of  sheltering,  protecting  instinct 
like  that  which  the  mother  hen  feels  when  night  comes 
on.  She  wants  all  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  she 
is  uneasy  and  unhappy  until  they  are  there.  She  has  no 
faith  in  bushes  and  brambles  and  tufts  of  grass;  but 
under  her  wings,  she  knows  that  it  is  warm  and  safe.  As 
for  herself  she  never  missed  Dick  so  painfully  as  in  the 
evenings.  Then,  she  was  always  wondering  where  he 
was,  if  on  the  street,  or  in  his  room,  writing,  thinking,  or 
wearying  (she  loved  the  good  old  Scotch  word,  it  was  so 
expressive)  for  all  of  them  at  home  as  they  were  weary- 
ing for  him. 

Treloar  burst  into  a  hearty  laugh,  exclaiming : 

"Isn't  that  a  woman  all  over?  Always  wants  the 
man  she  loves,  to  be  under  her  wings!  Dick,  tell  your 
sister  what  a  good  time  you  were  having  every  evening, 
and  how  glad  you  were  to  be  rid  of  the  tickling  of  her 
feathers  in  your  neck." 

At  last  the  chance  to  speak  of  what  had  been  absorb- 
ing him  presented  itself  naturally,  and  Dick,  with  a  bright 


io8  THE  TRELOARS 

color  mantling  over  his  face  and  a  smile  illuminating 
it,  said: 

"  I  missed  Margaret  as  much  as  she  missed  me,  and  one 
afternoon  last  week  I  had  the  hardest  work  in  the  world 
to  resist  the  temptation  of  flying  home  to  get  under  her 
wings;  but  I  must  confess  that  my  evenings  have  been 
very  agreeably  passed  in  the  theater.  It  is  part  of  my 
work  to  write  up  the  plays,  and  I've  had  the  good  for- 
tune to  hear  the  best  rendition  of  a  popular  play  that  I 
ever  heard.  I  have  discovered  an  actress  who  has  the 
subtlest  intuition  of  what  is  fine  and  strong  in  human  na- 
ture, and  knows  how  to  reproduce  it  marvelously.  She 
is  really  a  genius.  I  wonder  if  we  couldn't  make  up  a 
family  party  to  hear  her.  She  is  going  to  be  in  Oakland 
next  Tuesday  night.  Wouldn't  you  all  like  to  hear  her? 
Margaret,  you  haven't  been  to  a  play  for  a  long  time, 
nor  you,  neither,  have  you,  Dolly  ?  " 

"  O,  don't  make  it  next  Tuesday  night,"  exclaimed 
Catherine.  "  That's  the  night  that  I  have  an  engagement 
for  the  Phi  Kappa  dance,  and  I  can't  get  out  of  it.  Do, 
please,  put  it  off  for  a  week,  and  I'll  see  to  it  that  I  have 
no  engagement  for  that  night." 

"  All  right !  "  answered  Dick.  "  Now  don't  you,  any 
of  you,  forget  it.  I'll  make  arrangements  for  meeting 
you  somewhere,  and  I'll  rent  a  box." 

After  dinner,  Dick  proposed  a  little  walk  up  the  Tun- 
nel Road  to  see  the  sunset.  It  was  one  of  his  pleasures 
which  he  missed  in  San  Francisco.  But  his  father  and 
the  doctor  had  already  begun  their  interminable  discus- 
sion, and  refused  to  stir  from  their  chairs.  Catherine 
was  expecting  a  friend.  Margaret  excused  herself  on  the 
score  of  attending  to  her  duties  as  hostess,  and  pro- 
posed that  Dolly  accompany  Dick,  on  condition  that  they 
were  back  before  night-fall. 

"  O,  no,  we  are  not  going  to  bind  ourselves  by  any 
conditions,  are  we,  Dolly  ?  "  cried  Dick,  seizing  his  hat. 

"  Then  you  must  take  Dolly's  cloak  along  with  you. 
It  gets  chilly  after  sunset,"  answered  Margaret. 


THE  TRELOARS  109 

"  Where  is  your  cloak,  Dolly  ?  " 

"  I'll  get  it,  Dick.     It's  hanging  in  the  hall." 

But  Dick  was  already  there,  and  shouting: 

"  Which  is  yours,  Dolly,  the  blue  one  or  the  brown  ?  " 

"  The  blue  one." 

"All  right!  I  have  it,"  and  he  came  out  with  a  long 
navy  blue  mantle  hanging  over  his  arm.  "  Now,  you  are 
not  to  worry  about  us,  Margaret,  no  matter  how  late  we 
are.  We'll  get  home  about  the  time  father  and  the  doc- 
tor are  ready  to  suspend  their  discussion  of  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  materialism." 

With  that  he  started  off  with  Dolly,  happy  as  a  boy  let 
loose  from  school. 

"  Suspend  the  discussion  is  a  very  happy  phrase,"  said 
Dolly,  adjusting  her  hat  more  securely  on  her  head.  "  I 
can't  imagine  its  ever  ending,  and  I  can't  help  admiring 
immensely  the  freshness  and  enthusiasm  with  which  it  is 
always  renewed." 

"  Isn't  it  funny  ?  "  laughed  Dick.  "  It  has  got  to  be 
an  intellectual  game  with  them,  a  kind  of  argumentative 
chess,  in  which  by  some  new  and  unexpected  move,  one 
intends  to  check-mate  the  other.  But  what  would  they 
do,  if  the  game  were  ended  ?  I  really  think  father  would 
go  into  a  decline,  if  he  ever  succeeded  in  quite  convincing 
your  father  that  he  was  right.  They  act  as  whetstones 
on  each  other,  to  sharpen  each  other's  wits.  It  would 
be  an  immense  pity  if  they  were  to  grind  the  blades  quite 
away;  but  really  there  isn't  any  danger  of  that.  When 
they  part,  each  is  only  more  solidly  confirmed  in  his  own 
opinion." 

"  That  is  what  an  argument  is  for,  isn't  it  ? "  asked 
Dolly,  looking  at  him  with  a  roguish  smile.  "  You  don't 
argue  about  things  that  you  are  quite  sure  of,  do  you  ?  " 

"  Of  course  you  don't,"  assented  Dick.  "  You  only 
argue  to  make  yourself  surer,  and  to  find  out  which  of 
your  opinions  are  weak  and  won't  stand  a  hard  thwack. 
O,  well,  let  them  argue,  we  don't  care,  do  we?  You  and 
I  know  that  this  sunlight  and  this  air  are  infinitely  bet- 


I  io  THE  TRELOARS 

ter  than  a  corner  of  the  house.  What  do  you  say  to  a 
climb  up  Grizzly  Peak?  I  know  a  short  cut  over  the 
hills.  Are  you  in  the  humor  for  a  long  walk,  and  some 
good,  stiff  climbing?  " 

"  I  shouid  love  it  above  all  things,"  was  the  enthusias- 
tic reply.  "  I  have  been  wanting  to  do  something  of  that 
sort  all  day." 

"  Have  you,  really  ?  That's  fine !  Do  you  know, 
Dolly,  there  are  times  when  I'd  rather  walk  than  do  any- 
thing else.  It  rests  me,  when  I  am  tired ;  and  it  restores 
my  equilibrium  when  I  have  a  superfluous  amount  of 
energy,  and  don't  know  what  to  do  with  it." 

"  Don't  know  what  to  do  with  it  ?  "  repeated  Dolly  in 
surprise.  "  It  seems  to  me  that  you  have  the  finest  out- 
let in  the  world  for  your  energy,  you  who  can  write  and 
pour  out  all  that  you  think  and  feel  in  fitting  phrase. 
But  to  feel  and  to  have  thoughts  struggling  in  you  which 
can't  take  a  definite  shape  —  well,  that's  another  thing, 
and  that  is  what  /  know." 

Dolly  was  flushing  brightly  as  she  spoke,  for  it  was 
the  first  time  that  she  had  ever  revealed  so  much  of  herself 
to  this  companion  of  her  childhood  and  youth,  who  always 
treated  her  as  if  she  had  been  a  younger  sister  to  whom 
it  had  never  occurred  to  him  that  he  might  talk  seriously 
and  be  understood. 

"  You,  Dolly  ?  "  he  exclaimed  in  surprise.  "  I  thought 
girls " 

"  Had  no  thoughts ! "  interrupted  Dolly,  quickly. 
"  Well,  we  do,  only  we  have  great  trouble  in  making  any 
one  believe  that  we  amount  to  anything,  except  just  to 
play  with." 

"  Well,  Dolly,  if  it  will  be  any  consolation  to  you,  I'd 
like  to  assure  you  that  you  haven't  a  monopoly  of  that 
trouble.  We  all  have  it,  whose  thoughts  do  not  happen 
to  trot  in  harness  with  the  accepted  trotters.  But,  if  that 
is  your  step,  there's  nothing  to  do  but  to  refuse  to  trot  with 
them,  and  go  your  own  pace  alone.  That  is  what  father 
has  done.  I've  heard  him  criticised  as  not  having  got 


THE  TRELOARS  in 

much  out  of  life,  but  he's  got  character,  individuality; 
and  I've  come  to  believe  that  what  the  world  sometimes 
calls  failure  may  be  infinitely  more  respectable  and  more 
worth  while  than  what  it  calls  success." 

"  Yes,  I  think  so,  too,"  said  Dolly,  gravely.  "  But  I 
don't  think  that  we  should  desert  the  high  way,  just  be- 
cause it  is  so  well  traveled,  and  we  don't  like  the  dust 
and  the  crowd.  The  path  we  make  for  ourselves  must 
have  some  particular  beauty  and  charm  to  justify  our 
taking  it.  Your  father  has  found  such  a  path.  But  take 
Max  Gietmann,  for  example,  he  has  such  a  deadly  fear 
of  being  like  anybody  else,  that  he  prefers  being  either 
grotesque  or  hideous.  I  think  that's  silly,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Silly !  Yes !  But  I  don't  think  that's  exactly  the 
right  word  for  Max.  I  believe,  now,  that  he  is  des- 
perately in  earnest,  and,  at  least,  he  thinks  that  he  thinks 
right." 

"  But  that  does  not  make  it  right." 

"  Certainly  not ;  but  it  is  an  extenuating  circumstance. 
Poor  Max ! " 

"  Poor  Max ! "  repeated  Dolly,  her  red  lip  curling  in 
scorn.  "  What  makes  you  say  that,  as  if  you  pitied  him  ? 
I  don't  pity  him  in  the  least." 

"  Don't  you,  Dolly  ?  "  said  Dick,  looking  down  with  an 
amused  smile  at  the  lovely  flushed  face. 

"  No,  I  don't ! "  answered  Dolly  with  energy,  "  and 
please,  Dick,  do  take  me  seriously,  don't  smile.  I  hate 
to  see  a  young  man  act  like  an  old  one.  It  is  so  stupid  to 
begin  life  backward  and  think  you're  going  forward." 
Dolly  was  speaking  energetically,  having  long  ago  deter- 
mined that  at  the  first  opportunity  she  had,  she  would 
speak  out  her  mind  quite  plainly  on  this  subject.  She 
could  not  have  told  exactly  why  it  was  that  she  so  in- 
tensely disapproved  of  Max,  for  her  disapproval  was  the 
instinctive  recoil  of  a  healthy  nature  from  a  moral  mal- 
ady, but  she  knew  very  well  what  she  disliked  in  him. 

"You  are  right,  Dolly.  Youth  has  no  business  with 
the  gray  tints  of  age.  Its  colors  are  all  of  the  rainbow, 


112  THE  TRELOARS 

and  you  and  I  are  young.  Let's  be  true  to  our  colors. 
Look  at  them  reflected  in  the  sky,  yonder.  Isn't  it  splen- 
did! Doesn't  it  make  you  feel  richer  than  Rockefeller, 
not  merely  to  know  that  it  is  beautiful,  anybody  can  know 
that,  but  to  feel  that  it  is  —  to  have  it  touch  some  silent 
chord  in  your  nature  and  waken  it  to  music ! " 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  his  eyes  shining,  lip  and  nos- 
tril quivering,  all  the  artist  in  him  responding  to  beauty. 
Dolly  turned  her  eyes  from  the  glowing  sky  to  the  glow- 
ing face,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  no  compari- 
son between  the  loveliness  of  his  speaking  countenance, 
and  the  loveliness  of  the  brilliant  sky.  An  exquisite  sen- 
sation thrilled  her,  and  the  convulsive  little  shiver  that 
ran  over  her,  shook  the  arm  that  he  had  within  his  own, 
and  noticing  it,  he  turned  to  her  quickly: 

"Are  you  cold,  Dolly?" 

She  drew  her  arm  quickly  away  from  his,  and  all 
the  sunset  colors  were  burning  in  her  face. 

"  Not  in  the  least,"  she  answered.  "  It  is  only  that  the 
music  sings  in  me,  too,  and  I  can't  express  it  as  you  do ; 
so  it  dances  in  my  blood." 

"  Bless  your  dear  little  heart,  Dolly !  That  was  beauti- 
fully said,"  answered  Dick  enthusiastically.  "  You  know 
I  am  getting  rather  sensitive  about  letting  myself  go  ex- 
cept with  Margaret.  She  always  understands;  but  to 
stand  in  the  presence  of  a  glory  like  that  in  company 
with  one  who  can't  feel  it,  is  like  getting  a  slap  in  the 
face." 

The  memory  of  the  humiliating  experiences  with 
Cressy  and  Max  occurred  to  him,  and  he  went  on  ex- 
pansively : 

"  There  seems  to  be  growing  up  with  the  multiplication 
of  things,  an  exclusive  admiration  for  the  devices  of  hu- 
man ingenuity,  and  I,  who  prefer  a  mountain  or  a  glimpse 
of  the  ocean  to  an  automobile,  begin  to  feel  very  old- 
fashioned  at  twenty-three.  Do  you  mind  my  talking 
about  some  things  that  interest  me  very  much,  just  now?  " 

He  had  taken  her  arm,  and  they  were  walking  along 
a  broad  ridge  on  the  crest  of  a  grassy  hill. 


THE  TRELOARS  113 

"  I  should  take  it  as  such  a  favor,"  said  Dolly,  feeling 
as  if  life  were  enchantment,  and  as  if  she  had  sloughed 
her  childhood,  and  had  suddenly  seen  her  narrow  little 
valley  of  girlhood  broaden  into  the  wide  tableland  of 
womanhood.  Then  he  told  her  of  his  secret  hopes  and 
ambitions,  his  ardent  desire  that  America  should  stand, 
not  for  the  triumph  of  mediocrity  and  materialism,  the 
great  weakness  and  danger  of  democracies,  but  for  the 
triumph  of  principle,  the  triumph  of  an  enlightened  spirit- 
uality which  can  recognize  the  superiority  of  the  ideals  of 
the  past,  independent  of  any  origin  which  they  may  have. 

"  What  difference  does  it  make,"  he  asked,  "  whether 
these  principles  and  inspirations  are  rooted  in  supersti- 
tion or  not?  Do  I  quarrel  with  the  whiteness  of  the  lily,  I 
and  refuse  to  acknowledge  that  it  is  beautiful  and  sweet  ' 
and  pure  because  the  plant  from  which  it  blossoms  has 
its  roots  in  the  mud?  We  are  passing  through  a  stupid 
phase  of  rationalism  which  persists  in  looking  at  nothing 
but  the  roots  and  the  mud,  and  wants  to  make  a  new 
judgment  of  the  flower  based  on  the  analysis  of  the  mud. 
All  our  generous  and  pure  instincts  are  traced  back  to 
brute  selfishness.  What  of  it?  Are  they  any  the  less 
generous  and  pure  ?  All  the  principles  of  morality  in  the 
Christian  world  are  said  to  be  founded  upon  the  irrational 
visions  of  a  man  who  called  himself  God.  What  of  it? 
Are  the  moral  principles  of  a  great  moral  genius  not  as 
right  and  true  as  the  poetical  intuitions  of  a  Dante  or  a 
Shakespeare?  I  think  it  is  time  we  were  recognizing 
that.  I  think  it  is  time  to  stop  dabbling  in  the  mud  and  j 
to  begin  to  enjoy  the  flowers  again;  only  it  may  need 
some  great  national  calamity  to  burn  the  habit  out  of  us 
and  out  of  Europe,  too,  for  it  is  everywhere.  We  are  so 
infatuated  with  what  we  call  realities  —  and  by  that  we 
always  mean  mud  and  dirt,  as  if  the  flower  did  not  exist 
—  that  we  are  in  danger  of  swinging  back  to  savagery, 
in  order  to  get  more  of  them." 

Dolly,  who  was  as  ignorant  of  the  trend  of  modern 
thought,  as  if  she  had  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century, 


114  THE  TRELOARS 

did  not  quite  understand  Dick,  and  being  too  frank  to 
pretend  to  do  so,  honestly  admitted  that  she  had  not  been 
able  to  follow  him. 

"  Well,  I  mean  simply  this,"  he  explained.  "  We  seem 
to  have  exhausted  our  power  of  being  happy  in  being 
good,  and  finding  our  pleasures  in  simple  and  natural 
ways,  so  we  turn  to  the  extraordinary,  the  wicked,  the 
curious,  the  monstrous;  and  when  we  aren't  quite  idiotic 
enough  to  make  a  mess  of  our  own  lives,  we  hunger  and 
thirst  to  read  about  other  people's  messes ;  and  we  dig  up 
all  our  old  virtues  by  the  roots,  and  smell  the  roots,  and 
say  we  don't  believe  the  virtues.  Do  you  understand  me 
now?" 

"  I  think  I  do,  and  that's  just  what  I  meant  about 
Max.  He  is  one  of  your  messers,  and  whatever  he 
should  write  or  paint,  if  he  were  a  writer  or  an  artist, 
would  be  a  mess,  a  botch,  a  monstrosity,  something  that 
might  seem  true  to  him,  but  it  would  be  so  exceptional 
that  it  would  be,  or  at  any  rate  ought  to  be,  repulsive 
and  abnormal  to  the  rest  of  us." 

Dick  smiled.  Evidently  Dolly  had  taken  a  strong  dis- 
like to  Max,  and  was  anxious  to  make  him  share  it. 
But,  however  strongly  he  might  disapprove  of  Max's 
opinions,  he  had  that  form  of  loyalty  to  his  friend,  per- 
haps peculiarly  masculine,  which  would  not  allow  him 
to  admit  that  his  friend's  idiosyncrasies  were  an  essential 
part  of  his  character. 

"  I  think  you  are  a  little  hard  on  Max,  Dolly.  His 
peculiar  views  of  things  are,  I  think,  a  passing  phase, 
perhaps  the  effect  of  influences  abroad.  Then  again,  he 
may  just  want  to  bluff  the  public  into  taking  notice  of 
him.  He's  a  young  fellow  of  talent,  and  he  knows  that 
the  public  is  a  great  baby  and  likes  its  rattle  and  likes 
to  play  in  the  dirt.  But  once  he  gets  the  public  ear,  I 
think  he'll  come  out  of  all  that.  But  Dolly,  I  promise 
you  this,  if  ever  I  succeed  and  I  may  not,  you  know ;  but 
if  ever  I  do,  it  will  not  be  in  that  way.  I  won't  shake 
a  rattle,  and  I  won't  stir  up  the  odor  in  a  sewer. 
There!" 


THE  TRELOARS  115 

Dick  turned  to  face  her,  as  he  made  this  declaration. 
For  the  time  being,  he  was  oblivious  of  her,  except  as  an 
ear  for  what  was  deeply  stirring  him,  his  task,  his  sense 
of  its  importance,  his  consciousness  of  its  difficulties, 
and  the  firm  bracing  of  himself  to  meet  them.  But  to 
Dolly,  he  and  his  task  were  one,  something  wonderful. 
All  the  youth  in  her,  all  the  mute  mysterious  yearnings 
of  dawning  womanhood,  were  setting  in  a  tide  towards 
him,  and  unconsciously  they  spoke  in  her  glowing  face 
and  moistening  eyes. 

"  O,  it  is  glorious !  glorious !  to  hear  you  talk  like 
that,"  she  said.  "  I  am  going  to  confess  to  you  now, 
that  I  was  so  afraid  that  you  might  come  under  Max's 
influence  and  feel  that  you,  too,  must  flout  and  jeer  at 
things  that  mean  so  much  to  me  —  no,  I  don't  mean  me, 
only,"  she  corrected  herself  hurriedly,  "  I  mean  all  that 
gives  distinction  to  human  life  and  makes  it  more  than 
the  life  of  a  beast.  You  must  not  think  that  because 
father  always  argues  on  the  side  of  things  that  can  be 
seen  and  touched,  that  he  denies  the  unseen  and  the 
intangible.  You  know  that  your  father  sometimes  calls 
him  an  inverted  hypocrite,  because  he  lives  in  the  things 
of  the  spirit,  and  upholds  a  creed  contrary  to  him;  but 
I  think  he  acts  in  the  right  way,  from  what  you  said 
of  the  lily  and  the  roots.  He  looks  at  the  lily.  It  seems 
to  me  that  there  ought  to  be  some  reconciliation  between 
the  extremes  of  spirituality  and  materialism,  don't  you 
think  so?" 

"  Indeed  I  do,  and  that's  the  problem  of  our  generation. 
We  have  oscillated  between  the  two  extremes  which  are 
untenable.  Puritanism,  asceticism,  the  denial  of  the 
claims  of  the  body  on  one  hand,  and  gross  materialism 
that  denies  the  soul  and  its  hunger  for  liberation  from 
the  tyranny  of  things  on  the  other.  The  war  on  both 
sides  has  been  intensely  bitter,  and  neither  side  will  con- 
cede anything  to  the  other;  and  there  is  a  great  army  of 
neutrals  to  whom  the  question  on  either  side  means  noth- 
ing at  all,  and  life  to  them  is  only  a  question  of  self- 


n6  THE  TRELOARS 

assertion,  and,  so  we  have  a  hopeless  confusion  of  all 
sorts  of  assertions  —  a  kind  of  intellectual  anarchy 
that " 

Dick  started  violently,  for  just  at  this  point,  Dolly 
uttered  a  piercing  scream,  and  her  face  which  a  mo- 
ment before  had  been  glowing  like  a  crimson  poppy,  in 
the  sun,  was  blanched  with  terror. 

"  Why,  Dolly !     What's  the  matter?  " 

The  warm  blood  rushed  into  her  face  again,  and  she 
laughed  hysterically. 

"  Do  forgive  me,  Dick,  for  making  such  a  fuss ;  a 
snake  ran  across  my  foot.  See!  there  it  goes  through 
the  grass.  No,  don't  kill  it,  please!  Let  it  go.  I  know 
that  it  is  so  silly  to  be  afraid  of  snakes,  so  many  of 
them  are  perfectly  harmless  —  but  I  can't  help  it.  They 
chill  the  very  blood  in  my  veins,  when  I  see  them." 

She  was  trembling  all  over  like  a  frightened  child,  and 
he  put  his  hand  on  hers,  as  it  rested  on  his  arm  and  petted 
it  in  a  reassuring  way. 

"  Yes,  they  are  nasty  things,"  he  said.  "  Margaret 
hates  them,  too.  How  cold  your  hands  are,  Dolly!  I 
think  it's  time  to  throw  this  cape  about  you.  There! 
isn't  that  better?  And  see,  the  fog  is  commencing  to 
creep  up.  I  hadn't  noticed  it.  Well,  all  good  things 
come  to  an  end.  I  am  afraid  we  must  go  back,  Dolly 
dear." 

He  said  the  last  words  with  an  involuntary  lingering 
caress  in  his  voice,  not  meant  particularly  for  her,  but 
born  of  the  overflow  of  tenderness  in  him.  But  she 
took  it  to  herself,  and  her  young  heart  was  filled  with 
gratitude.  She  could  not  speak  for  a  while;  and  when 
she  did,  she  cleared  her  throat,  and  spoke  disparagingly  of 
herself  and  her  fright ;  assured  him,  too,  that  though  she 
hated  snakes,  she  loved  the  fog,  and  was  not  at  all  afraid 
of  being  lost  in  it ;  that  she  had  wandered  so  often  over 
the  hills,  that  her  feet  could  find  their  way  in  spite  of 
the  gray  billowy  masses,  without  the  aid  of  her  eyes. 
"  And  sometimes,  I  like  to  feel  myself  wrapped  up  in  the 


THE  TRELOARS  117 

fog  —  all  the  world  suddenly  vanished,  and  I  know  that 
it  will  lift  like  a  curtain,  and  show  me  my  world  again. 
It  is  a  delightful  little  oscillation  between  truth  and 
poetry.  You  don't  know  how  much  I  get  out  of  it." 

"  Which  do  you  like  the  best,  truth  or  poetry?  " 

"  I  can't  tell.  That  depends  upon  my  mood.  I 
shouldn't  like  to  do  without  either,  would  you?  " 

"  No,  but  if  I  were  obliged  to  choose,  I  should 
choose " 

"  Poetry !  "  interrupted  Dolly,  eagerly. 

"  No,  not  at  all.  I  should  choose  truth,  because  I 
could  always  make  a  little  poetry  out  of  it  if  I  wanted  to." 

"  I  should,  too,"  said  Dolly ;  but  had  he  given  a  dif- 
ferent reply,  it  would  have  been  all  one  to  Dolly ;  for  the 
old,  old  spell  was  upon  her  —  the  spell  which  melts  in- 
dividuality like  wax,  and  molds  it  into  the  form  of  an- 
other—  the  spell  which  made  her  say  from  her  heart 
when  they  parted  that  night : 

"  I  thank  you  so  much  for  letting  me  walk  with  you. 
It  was  a  pleasure  that  I  shall  never,  never  forget." 

And  she  never  will  —  not  even  when  her  dark  hair 
whitens,  and  her  cheeks  and  lips  have  lost  their  brilliant 
bloom,  and  other  memories  have  faded  away  in  the  mists 
of  the  silent  years. 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHILE  love  was  flushing  the  world  with  its  warm 
roseate  tints  for  some  of  his  friends,  poor  Max  was 
clouded  in  the  Cimmerian  darkness  of  disgust  and  hatred. 
His  Dawn  had  no  sunlight,  but  in  accordance  with  his 
principles,  the  sunlight  was  not  necessary.  He  meant  to 
protest  vigorously  against  all  that  the  world  holds  dear; 
he  meant  to  shock,  kick,  bite  his  way  into  public  notice. 
He  had  the  profoundest  contempt  for  the  superficial  cult- 
ure of  his  age.  He  knew  how  easily  the  public  can  be 
hypnotized  into  accepting  anything,  accompanied  by  a 


n8  THE  TRELOARS 

sufficient  amount  of  flashy  rhetoric,  prolonged  until  it 
reverberates  from  all  sides ;  but  when  a  newly  discovered 
illustrator  brought  him  the  first  draught  of  the  cover 
design  for  the  Dawn,  he  recoiled  in  horror. 

"  What  the  devil  do  you  call  that  ?  Do  you  take  me 
for  a  fool  ?  "  he  blurted  out. 

"  No,  sir,"  replied  the  artist  with  aplomb,  "  I  take  you 
for  one  of  the  most  intelligent  men  I  ever  met.  That 
is  why  I  have  the  confidence  and  the  boldness  to  bring  to 
you  probably  the  first  unique  specimen  exhibited  in  Amer- 
ica, of  a  new  and  rational  form  of  art,  destined  to  take 
the  place  of  the  old  illusions  of  the  senses  which  disgrace 
the  art  galleries  of  the  world." 

"  Now,  don't  begin  any  of  that  palaver !  "  interrupted 
Max. 

The  artist,  not  in  the  least  abashed,  smiled  in  a  half- 
patronizing  way,  as  he  said: 

"  Mr.  Gietmann,  I  only  ask  of  you,  now,  what  you 
are  about  to  ask  of  the  reading  public,  in  the  first  issue 
of  your  illuminating  Dawn,  and  that  is  the  right  to  a 
hearing.  Am  I  wrong  in  presuming  that  the  right  is 
mine  ?  " 

Max  felt  himself  caught  in  his  own  trap,  and  as  there 
was  no  other  way  out  than  to  submit  he  threw  himself 
back  in  his  chair,  and  said  curtly : 

"  Go  on !     What  do  you  call  the  damn  mess  ?  " 

The  artist  smiled  sweetly  and  continued  volubly: 

"  Excuse  me,  sir,  not  a  '  damn  mess,'  but  the  dynamic 
decomposition  of  a  modern  poet." 

"  The  hell  you  do !  "  roared  Max,  looking  like  an  angry 
bull. 

This  time,  the  artist  laughed  aloud. 

"  You  will  pardon  my  mirth,  sir,"  he  said,  "  but  your 
delicious  emphasis  confirms  me  in  the  belief  that  I  have 
really  produced  a  masterpiece,  something  extraordinary, 
something  that  cannot  be  received  with  indifference,  but 
must  shout  its  existence  from  the  house-tops,  and  be  read 
by  him  who  runs.  That  is  exactly  what  I  wished  to  do. 


THE  TRELOARS  119 

It  is  the  fate  of  every  new  movement  in  literature,  music, 
art,  science,  and  religion  to  be  received  with  scorn  and 
ridicule  and  hatred  whose  bitterness  is  precisely  in  pro- 
portion to  the  vitality  which  it  has.  If  the  new  move- 
ment has  not  the  vigorous  vitality  of  genuine  novelty,  if 
it  cannot  create  opposition,  before  it  creates  disciples,  it 
is  a  feeble  and  unnecessary  innovation,  destined  to  perish 
at  its  birth.  I  have  carefully  read  every  word  of  your 
admirable  introduction  to  the  Dawn.  Every  sentiment 
in  it  finds  an  echo  in  my  heart  and  in  my  judgment. 
Now,  sir,  the  great  artists  on  canvas,  who  represent  this 
new  movement,  have  none  of  the  vestiges  of  atavism 
you  decry.  If  the  new  poet  still  feels  himself  jagged  a 
little  at  the  corners  of  his  mouth  by  the  thrashed  straw 
of  the  past,  the  artist  has  spit  it  all  out.  He  has  opened 
his  mouth  figuratively  speaking,  to  its  full  extent 
and " 

"  Slobbered  all  over  his  canvas ! "  sarcastically  re- 
marked Max,  who  was  listening  to  the  man  with  curious 
amazement  at  his  audacity.  He  had  encountered  a  good 
deal  of  bluffing  in  his  time,  but  he  never  had  seen  any- 
thing quite  like  this.  It  began  to  interest  him. 

The  artist,  still  unabashed,  smiled,  bowed  politely,  and 
said: 

"  I  really  must  congratulate  you  on  your  felicitous 
phrase.  I  should  have  been  grievously  disappointed  had 
you  received  my  work  of  art  with  appreciation  and  ap- 
plause. It  would  have  demonstrated  infallibly  that  I  was 
speaking  to  the  atavistic  desire  for  definite  form  and 
outline,  the  childish  desire  that  the  representation  of 
a  thing  should  bear  some  resemblance  to  the  thing  rep- 
resented. Common  sense,  sir,  has  been  the  enemy  of 
progress  ever  since  man  emerged  from  the  darkness  of 
the  cave.  But  we  have  progressed  in  spite  of  its  bale- 
ful influence;  in  spite  of  it,  we  have  founded  a  religion 
denying  its  existence,  and  now,  we  have  founded  an  art, 
denying  and  defying  its  existence.  We,  too,  affirm  that 
spirit  is  everything,  and  matter  but  one  of  its  CQuntless 


120  THE  TRELOARS 

illusions.  Therefore,  taking  up  art,  not  in  the  vulgar 
spirit  of  common  sense  which  would  make  it  merely  an 
artificial  record  of  the  sensuous  delight  which  men  nat- 
urally take  in  the  so-called  beauty  of  the  visible  world  — 
but  taking  it  up  in  a  new  intellectual  and  spiritual  con- 
ception of  it,  as  a  record  of  man's  highest  scientific  de- 
ductions, we  have  produced  something  which  brings  the 
theories  of  science  within  the  scope  of  vision.  We  have 
painted  the  abstract,  we  have  carved  motion,  we  have 
made  the  dynamic  perceptible  in  the  static.  No  longer 
confined  to  the  limited  realm  of  the  beautiful  and  the 
good,  as  the  past  has  conceived  it,  we  have  thrown  wide 
open  the  doors  of  the  intellect  and  we  have  said :  '  Enter 
ye  poor  in  spirit  and  ye  who  slobber  and  whine !  Enter, 
ye  whose  souls  have  wandered  in  darkness,  hugging  your 
sins  in  secret  lest  they  bring  shame  to  you  in  the  day- 
light ;  learn  of  us  the  new  gospel  of  good  tidings !  There 
is  no  shame,  there  is  no  evil,  there  is  no  good ! ' ' 

Here  Max  coughed  and  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair. 
The  voluble  audacity  of  the  man  was  so  admirable  in  its 
way  that  he  had  been  listening  with  amazement,  but  at 
this  point,  the  ideas  which  he  himself  had  been  pro- 
mulgating took  on  such  a  ludicrous  coloring  from  the  lips 
of  the  mountebank,  that  he  began  to  feel  very  uncom- 
fortable. The  artist,  unconscious  of  any  inner  protest 
in  his  listener  —  went  on  rapidly,  as  if  he  were  reciting 
something  he  had  learned  by  heart. 

"  As  for  myself,  my  forte  is  dynamism.  I  am  trying 
to  put  the  philosophy  of  Bergson  on  canvas.  I  wish  to 
express  to  the  feeble  sense  of  vision  the  intellectual  re- 
volt from  the  static  illusion.  I  am  painting  the  percep- 
tions of  the  sixth  sense.  To  the  unsensed  eye,  (excuse 
this  word  —  I  mean  the  eye  that  has  not  attained  to  the 
perception  of  the  sixth  sense),  my  work  may  seem  a  hope- 
less confusion ;  but  to  the  eye  aided  by  the  intellectual 
vision  of  the  sixth  sense,  it  is  a  marvelous  expression  of 
the  Bergsonian  philosophy.  Here,  sir,  you  have  the  dy- 
namic decomposition  of  a  modern  poet." 


THE  TRELOARS  121 

At  this,  the  artist  produced  his  picture,  and  after  look- 
ing at  it  himself,  with  a  puzzled  expression,  he  said : 

"  No,  excuse  me.  I  sometimes  get  the  labels  mixed. 
This  is  not  the  dynamic  decomposition  of  a  modern  poet. 
I  have  brought  you  instead  the  dynamic  rhythm  of  a 
woman's  figure." 

"  God,  what  a  picture !  "  said  Max. 

"  Isn't  it  magnificent  ?  "  said  the  artist.  "  There's  a 
great  deal  more  in  labeling  a  picture  than  is  ordinarily 
imagined.  I  think  this  is  stunning.  We  have  had  the 
nude  ad  nauseam.  Don't  misunderstand  me.  It  is  not 
a  question  of  immorality.  Every  advanced  thinker,  now- 
adays, knows  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  immorality  or 
morality  —  there's  nothing  but  convenience  and  inconveni- 
ence. But  it  is  the  monotony  of  the  thing  we  object  to. 
Think  of  the  miles  of  Venuses  there  are  in  the  world.  We 
do  the  nude,  too,  but  we  don't  do  it  so  that  you  can  recog- 
nize it.  Have  you  seen  that  colossal  thing,  The  Nude  de- 
scending the  Stairway?  It  is  so  magnificently  done  that 
you  can't  tell  the  stairway  from  the  nude,  wonderfully 
subtle  effects !  I  tell  you  the  soul  needs  the  shock  of  the 
unknown,  the  horrible,  even  the  colossal  and  unfathom- 
able depths  of  the  absurd  to  resuscitate  its  subtle  vibra- 
tions in  this  cluttered  age  of  ours.  But  this  is  not  the 
particular  form  of  dynamism  that  I  had  designed  for  the 
Dawn.  We  can  reserve  this  for  a  later  number." 

He  put  the  design  back  in  his  portfolio  and  drew  forth 
another  hopeless  confusion  of  daubs,  lines  and  scrawls, 
in  one  corner  of  which  could  be  seen  the  semblance  of  a 
leering  human  eye. 

"  Here  is  the  picture  I  want.  I  am  not  mistaken  this 
time.  These  marvelous  interpretations  of  dynamism  are 
so  subtly,  almost  inextricably  interwoven,  that  to  the  un- 
trained eye,  the  same  name  seems  as  applicable  to  one  as 
to  another;  and  to  be  perfectly  frank,  they  are  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  interchangeable.  The  old  style  of  art  which 
frankly,  flatly,  boldly,  and  without  mystery  represents 
something  to  the  eye  which  the  eye  can  recognize  as 


122  THE  TRELOARS 

familiar,  is  going  to  be  entirely  superseded  by  the  art  of 
reason,  the  art  of  the  unseen.  It  illustrates  the  mind's 
natural  progress  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract,  and 
it  is  the  glory  of  our  age  to " 

"  O,  well,  that'll  do !  "  said  Max  sharply.  "  You  can't 
talk  me  into  believing  that  the  invisible  is  visible  and  in- 
visible at  the  same  time,  and  that  the  dynamic  is  static 
and  dynamic  at  the  same  time,  because  I  happen  to  know 
the  meaning  of  the  words.  I  also  know  that  damn  fool- 
ishness is  damn  foolishness,  whether  you  call  it  dynamic 
or  not;  but  your  impudence  and  impotence  are  so  in- 
credibly colossal  that  I  should  like  to  experiment  with 
it  a  little,  just  to  see  how  far  the  public  can  be  bluffed 
into  taking  it  seriously.  But  first  of  all,  I  want  to  ask 
you  on  your  honor,  if  you  happen  to  feel  it  convenient 
to  have  such  a  thing,  do  you  really  believe  all  that  damn 
rot  you've  been  talking?  " 

The  artist  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter  then  suddenly 
straightening  his  face  and  wiping  his  moist  eyes  with  the 
back  of  his  hand,  he  said : 

"  Mr.  Gietmann,  when  you  have  rung  a  bell  at  a  door, 
or  gently  rapped  at  it,  and  you  can't  get  in,  and  your 
three  square  meals  a  day  depend  on  your  getting  in,  you 
throw  stones  at  the  door,  or  break  it  down  with  a  ham- 
mer." 

Here  he  shut  one  eye  tight,  and  screwed  up  one  corner 
of  his  mouth. 

"  Now  to  be  absolutely  frank  with  you,  I  have  tried  to 
get  public  notice  in  a  legitimate  way :  that  is,  I  have 
painted  things  as  I  thought  they  ought  to  be  painted  to 
be  recognizable;  and  nobody  ever  paid  any  attention  to 
me.  I  had  to  dine  off  the  steam  that  hung  around  the 
entrance  to  basement  restaurants.  I  bummed  around  in 
Venice,  Munich,  Paris  and  I  saw  fellows  doing  the  most 
atrocious  things  that  would  set  the  teeth  of  a  goose  on 
edge,  if  it  had  any,  or  make  a  monkey  go  and  drown  him- 
self because  he  looked  so  much  like  a  man;  and  they 
got  their  names  in  the  paper,  and  their  hands  in  other 


THE  TRELOARS  123 

people's  pockets,  and  something  solid  on  their  plates 
for  dinner ;  so  I  said  to  myself,  bluff's  the  game,  old  boy. 
Throw  your  modesty  to  the  sheep  and  the  winds,  learn 
some  sort  of  what  you,  more  expressively  than  elegantly, 
call  damn-foolishness.  But  to  come  to  the  point !  " 

"  Yes,  let's  come  to  the  point,"  said  Max  impatiently. 

"  Well,  the  point  is  this,  that  for  the  general  public 
the  word  to  conjure  with  is  progress,  and  '  old  fogy,'  is 
a  word  they  hate  like  the  devil.  With  that  word  you 
can  make  'em  all  turn  and  squirm  and  go  in  any  direction 
you  like.  And  then  the  public  is  so  damnably  helpless 
when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  art  and  literature ;  it  does 
not  know  what  to  say." 

Max  looked  silently  at  the  man  for  a  while,  a  peculiar 
sarcastic  smile  playing  about  his  lips.  At  last  he  said: 

"  Well,  I  have  no  more  reason  than  you  to  love  the 
world,  and  I  am  no  more  afraid  of  its  hard  shell.  You 
have  been  frank  with  me,  and  so  I'll  be  frank  with  you. 
I  am  inquisitive.  I  should  like  to  see  to  what  degree  of 
pure  idiocy  a  man  may  descend  with  the  public,  and  get 
credit  for  genius  and  originality." 

"  To  an  unfathomable  degree,  I  assure  you,"  was  the 
quick  response,  "  if  you  only  keep  your  face  straight  all 
the  way  down.  Laugh  out  of  the  corner  of  your  eye, 
give  yourself  away  as  I  have  done  with  you,  and  it's  all 
up  with  you;  but  a  grave  face  and  a  loose  tongue  will 
carry  you  anywhere.  Shout  through  a  megaphone,  and 
shout  anything,  it  doesn't  matter  what,  and  they'll  take 
the  noise  for  thought." 

"  Do  you  think  you  could  accompany  this  ? "  Max 
hesitated,  for  the  life  of  him  he  could  not  resist  a  con- 
temptuous toss  of  his  head  and  jerk  of  his  thumb  in  the 
direction  of  the  smeared  paper,  and  when  he  caught  sight 
of  it  again,  he  finished  his  question  with  the  words, 
"  damn  mess  with  an  explanatory  article  in  the  style  of 
your  address  to  me  ?  " 

"  Could  I  ?  "  replied  the  man  joyfully !  "  Why  that's 
my  long  suit.  I  should  think  I  could.  It's  not  a  new 
lingo,  you  know.  I've  tried  it  out  before.  It  goes." 


124  THE  TRELOARS 

"Very  well,  bring  in  your  essay  to-morrow.  Call  it 
futuristic  art,  or  the  art  of  the  future,  or  anything  that 
will  suggest  a  revolt  from  the  present ;  and  we'll  dish  it  up 
to  the  public.  What  time  is  it  getting  to  be?  Six 
o'clock  !  That's  my  dinner  hour.  Is  it  yours  ?  " 

*'  My  dinner  hour  is  when  I  have  a  quarter  to  spare, 
or  an  invitation  to  dine." 

"  There's  a  quarter !  "  said  Max,  handing  him  a  piece 
of  silver. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

"  O  dear !  dear !  What  in  the  world  ever  made  me 
promise  to  meet  that  boy  at  eleven  o'clock !  " 

Nita  Normand  groaned,  as  she  put  her  hand  under  her 
pillow  to  take  out  her  watch  and  look  at  it.  It  was  half- 
past  nine.  Such  a  ridiculously  early  hour  to  get  up !  A 
heavy  languor  weighed  upon  her.  She  felt  as  if  she  could 
sleep  uninterruptedly,  the  whole  day  through. 

"  I  won't  go !  Wrhy  should  I  put  myself  out  for  him?  " 
But  no  sooner  had  she  asked  herself  that  question,  than 
there  flashed  over  her  the  recollection  of  the  masterly 
eulogy  which  "  the  boy "  had  written  about  her,  full  of 
delicate  appreciation,  such  as  she  had  never  before  re- 
ceived. It  had  spoken  not  only  to  her  vanity,  but  to  her 
ambition.  It  had  been  an  unanswerable  argument  to  her 
critical  manager  whom  her  wilfulness  had  often  dis- 
pleased. She  had  really  been  very  grateful  for  it,  and 
she  had  not  hesitated  a  moment  when  the  young  journalist 
had  asked  her,  yesterday,  as  an  especial  favor  to  lunch 
with  him,  to-day.  She  had  even  added  with  enthusiasm : 
"  On  one  condition,  that  is,  that  we  have  an  early  lunch 
at  half -past  eleven,  and  then  go  out  to  the  park  on  the 
street  car.  I  haven't  had  my  lungs  filled  with  good  fresh 
air  for  a  long  time.  I  want  the  sun  to  shine  on  me." 

How  warmly  his  face  had  flushed  with  pleasure  at  the 
homely  wish;  and  they  were  to  meet  at  Union  Square, 


THE  TRELOARS  125 

because,  knowing  that  that  would  be  more  convenient 
for  him,  she  had  been  considerate  enough  to  insist  upon 
it.  How  well  she  knew  what  to  say  to  please  him !  He 
was  so  ingenuous,  so  transparent,  so  young  with  the  youth 
that  never  grows  old  —  the  youth  of  idealism !  She  felt 
herself  centuries  old  in  comparison  with  him.  To  her, 
he  was  a  child  astray  in  a  hostile  world  in  which  sooner 
or  later  he  would  perish.  She  would  save  him  as  long 
as  she  could  —  she  would  save  him,  too,  from  herself, 
for  she  knew  very  well  the  power  which  she  had  over  him. 
"  Yes,  I  will  save  him,  for  he  is  Max's  friend."  She 
found  herself  uttering  the  words  aloud;  and,  as  there  is 
a  breath  of  exhilaration  in  every  generous  thought,  she 
sat  upright  with  sudden  energy,  and  slipped  out  of  bed  to 
make  sure  of  herself,  for  her  impulses  were  apt  to  be 
transitory  and  effectless. 

She  went  into  her  bath-room,  turned  on  the  water, 
and  while  it  was  running,  seized  a  hand-mirror  and  looked 
at  herself.  Her  hair  was  in  curl-papers,  her  face  had  an 
oily  look  from  the  liberal  cream  bath  she  had  given  it  to 
remove  the  paint  and  powder  of  the  night  before,  and 
there  were  some  tiny  creases  on  her  left  cheek  near  the 
eye.  A  wrinkle  is  a  tragedy  to  a  woman  whose  power  is 
beauty.  Nita  opened  a  bureau  drawer,  took  out  a  soft 
rag  and  carefully  wiped  her  face.  Then  she  began  gently 
massaging  her  cheek,  until  all  traces  of  the  lines  had 
left  it. 

She  was  wide  awake  now.  She  was  fighting  the  most 
remorseless  enemy  of  a  lovely  woman  —  time.  Yet,  she 
was  not  old,  only  thirty-two,  in  the  very  prime  and  heyday 
of  a  woman's  power ;  but  she  had  lived  much  in  thirty-two 
years,  if  life  is  to  be  counted  by  heart-throbs  and  not  by 
the  passing  of  time.  Restless,  ambitious,  daring  —  she 
had  always  been  that,  quick-willed,  too,  full  of  artful  co- 
quetry, dreading  nothing  in  the  world  so  much  as  to  be 
bored,  feeling  a  sensuous  delight  in  beautiful  things  —  in 
the  touch  of  velvet,  the  glow  of  rich  colors,  the  grace  of 
sinuous  lines  —  inclined  to  sentimentality,  too,  viewing 


126  THE  TRELOARS 

life  through  the  medium  of  an  intensely  self-centered 
personality,  weaving  a  golden  haze  about  herself  —  at- 
tributing to  herself  all  the  virtues  and  all  the  heroisms, 
had  destiny  placed  her,  where  she  could  have  exercised 
them.  Then  a  great  blow  had  shattered  her  illusions. 
She  had  given  herself  and  her  love  as  freely  as  water 
to  a  parvenu,  handsome,  bold,  coarse,  using  his  newly 
acquired  riches  to  gratify  his  caprices,  incapable  of  fidel- 
ity because  he  had  passed  his  life  in  exploiting  the  weak- 
nesses of  others.  In  the  early  days  of  their  union,  she 
had  felt  a  keen  delight  in  subjecting  her  self-will  to  his 
tyranny,  feeling  sure  that  she  could  assert  it  at  any  time. 
That  was  her  mistake.  He  had  abandoned  her  as  sud- 
denly as  he  had  taken  her  up.  Any  woman  might  have 
been  to  him  what  she  had  been,  and  the  degradation  of 
that  thought,  and  the  revulsion  of  feeling  that  followed 
it  were  horrible.  It  took  years  for  the  throb  and  the 
sting  of  that  humiliation  to  deaden.  But  when  the  pain 
was  benumbed,  she  was  another  woman.  She  had  de- 
veloped a  personality,  fluent,  sympathetic,  yet  at  the  same 
time  braced  by  an  unalterable  resolve  never  again  to 
wreck  her  happiness  through  the  weakness  of  her  heart. 
She  made  herself  a  consummate  actress,  but  she  had 
not  yet  won  the  recognition  which  she  craved.  She  had 
no  striking  eccentricities;  her  interpretations  were  too 
subtly  true  to  speak  to  the  galleries  which  demand  dash 
and  brilliancy.  Then,  too,  she  had  been  unfortunate  in 
her  managers.  Associated  with  men  who  were  following 
and  not  directing  public  taste,  she  had  been  obliged  to 
submit  to  irritating  criticism  from  men  who  were  her 
superiors  in  position  and  her  inferiors  in  good  taste  and 
intuitive  insight.  But  she  had  never  lost  faith  in  her- 
self. Somewhere,  some  day,  some  one  would  discover 
her.  This  was  the  one  faith  that  had  survived  the  ship- 
wreck of  many  faiths,  and  lo!  to-day  the  prophetic 
insight  had  proved  to  be  true.  To  be  sure,  she  was 
disappointed  that  her  discoverer  was  a  novice  himself  and 
could  not  yet  speak  with  an  authoritative  voice.  But  at 


THE  TRELOARS  127 

any  rate,  a  breach,  even  though  a  small  one,  had  been 
made  in  the  blank  wall  of  apathy  which  hemmed  her  in, 
and  that  was  something  decidedly  worth  while. 

"  Yes,  it  was  decidedly  worth  while !  "  she  said  aloud 
to  herself,  erect  before  the  mirror,  refreshed  by  her  bath, 
and  applying  the  last  faint  touch  of  rouge  to  her  cheeks. 
Then  she  scrutinized  herself  critically.  "  The  boy  "  had 
never  seen  her  in  daylight.  She  did  not  wish  to  shock 
him  with  any  suggestion  of  artificiality.  She  meant  to 
put  off  the  actress  to-day  and  put  on  the  woman;  she 
smiled  at  the  thought,  half  wondering,  if  that,  too,  were 
not  a  role  like  the  other,  and  just  as  difficult  to  play  in 
the  presence  of  the  unconscious  freshness  of  youth.  She 
had  the  virtue  of  a  well-dressed  woman;  pleased  with 
herself,  she  was  in  the  fittest  frame  of  mind  to  give  pleas- 
ure to  others. 

Of  course,  Dick  was  waiting  for  her  in  Union  Square. 
She  saw  him  at  once  standing  near  a  group  of  palms,  but 
she  pretended  not  to  see  him,  in  order  to  find  out  whether 
he  would  recognize  her.  How  could  she  doubt  it!  He 
hastened  towards  her,  his  hat  in  his  hand,  his  whole  face 
seeming  nothing  but  one  broad  smile!  She  put  out  her 
hand,  and  he  came  near  crushing  it  in  the  clasp  of  his 
own. 

"  Have  you  been  waiting  long  ?  " 

"  Only  half  an  hour." 

"  But  I  am  very  nearly  on  time.  Look,  it  is  only  a 
quarter  of  twelve." 

She  drew  her  open-faced  watch  from  her  purse,  and 
held  it  towards  him.  He  looked  at  it ;  he  did  not  tell  her 
that  he  knew  exactly  what  time  it  was,  for  he  had  been 
looking  at  his  own  watch  every  five  minutes,  and  that 
the  half-hour  had  seemed  interminable. 

"  Are  you  hungry  ?  "  she  continued,  and  not  giving  him 
time  to  reply  went  on :  "  because,  if  you  aren't,  suppose 
we  lunch  out  at  the  Cliff  House,  or  in  some  little  tavern 
along  the  shore,  where  we  can  look  out  on  the  sea. 
Wouldn't  you  like  it?" 


128  THE  TRELOARS 

Dick  assured  her  that  nothing  would  delight  him  more 
than  that,  and  added :  "  I'll  get  an  automobile." 

"  O,  no,  please  don't,"  she  cried,  putting  her  hand  on 
his  arm  to  detain  him,  as  he  started  towards  the  street. 
"  You  remember  the  bargain  was  a  street  car.  I  was  in 
a  very  serious  automobile  accident,  a  few  weeks  ago,  and 
my  nerves  haven't  yet  recovered  from  the  shock.  I  am 
afraid  I  shall  never  again  feel  safe  in  an  auto." 

"What  a  pity!" 

"  Isn't  it  ?  I  have  a  friend  who  once  made  herself  sick 
eating  too  much  honey,  and  the  very  sight  of  it  now 
affects  her  with  nausea.  I  used  to  think  she  had  a  very 
stupid  stomach  to  keep  up  a  grudge  like  that ;  but  I  under- 
stand it,  now.  Do  you  know  where  to  take  a  car  ?  " 

He  did  know,  and  in  a  very  few  moments  they  were 
sitting  side  by  side  on  the  front  seat  of  an  open  electric 
car,  drinking  in  the  fresh  cool  air  and  finding  it  delicious. 
It  was  one  of  those  rare  sunny  mornings  in  the  San 
Francisco  summer  time,  when  the  gray  fog  does  not  hang 
sullenly  over  its  hills,  nor  the  sharp  wind  blow  keenly 
from  the  ocean.  With  the  susceptibility  that  made  her 
so  good  an  actress,  Nita  gave  herself  up  fully  to  the 
charm  of  the  morning,  and  to  the  youthful  enthusi- 
asm of  her  companion.  Once,  she  put  out  her  hand  in 
a  little  gesture  of  expansion,  and  he,  so  fully  conscious 
of  her  every  look,  and  every  motion,  put  out  his  hand  to 
clasp  it,  as  if  she  had  stretched  it  out  to  him,  and  then 
quickly  withdrew  his  own  hand,  as  he  saw  that  no  such 
intention  had  entered  her  mind. 

"  I  am  not  going  to  talk,"  she  said,  "  one  can't  talk 
when  it  is  necessary  to  shout  to  be  heard.  That  is  one 
disadvantage  of  the  street  car." 

However,  they  were  not  wholly  silent  during  the  long 
ride.  They  spoke  of  their  pleasure  in  the  beauty  of  the 
morning.  They  pointed  out  to  each  other  from  the  sum- 
mit of  hills,  lovely  glimpses  of  sea  and  mountains  on  the 
farther  shore.  They  agreed  that  San  Francisco  was  the 
most  cosmopolitan  city  in  the  world  in  that  offhand  way 


THE  TRELOARS  129 

in  which  we  all  generalize  on  insufficient  data ;  and  under- 
neath their  surface  chat,  vibrated  rhythmic  melody  of 
joy  in  each  other,  a  consciousness  of  harmony  that  made 
their  silence  more  eloquent  than  speech. 

"  It  was  so  good  of  you  to  give  me  this  immense  pleas- 
ure," said  Dick,  as  he  helped  Nita  off  the  car,  at  the  end 
of  their  journey. 

"  Not  at  all,"  answered  Nita,  "  I  am  sorry  to  tell  you 
that  I  am  very  selfish ;  and,  if  there  had  not  been  a  pros- 
pect of  pleasure  in  it  for  me,  I  shouldn't  have  come.  I 
should  have  invented  a  headache,  or  a  previous  engage- 
ment that  had  slipped  my  mind.  Like  all  women,  I  am 
very  fertile  in  excuses  of  that  kind." 

Dick  protested  that  he  did  not  believe  it,  and  that 
he  would  let  no  one  abuse  her,  not  even  herself. 

"  But  I  am  not  abusing  myself.  On  the  contrary,  I 
am  showing  you  how  clever  a  diplomat  I  am.  Isn't 
diplomacy  the  art  of  doing  as  you  please,  and  making 
your  adversary  believe  that  you  are  doing  as  he  pleases, 
or  that  if  you  aren't,  that  you  regret  it  immensely  ?  " 

Dick  laughed.  "  Yes,  I  guess  that's  the  essence  of 
diplomacy." 

"  Of  course  it  is.  And  so,  if  I  were  a  man,  I  should 
very  much  distrust  the  woman  who  made  me  believe  in  her 
excuses ;  but  I  should  never  betray  my  distrust  to  her,  lest 
she  should  resort  to  another  ruse.  Ah!  that  sea  air  is  de- 
licious, isn't  it  ?  " 

She  stopped  suddenly,  facing  the  ocean.  The  surf  was 
rolling  in  and  breaking  its  foam  on  the  shore.  The  far 
sea  was  dancing  and  sparkling  in  the  sunlight.  The  salt 
air  was  tonic  and  life-giving. 

"  Delicious !  "  she  repeated,  taking  a  long  deep  breath, 
her  eyes  glistening,  a  sweet  smile  playing  about  her 
sensitive  mouth.  "  That  is  my  idea  of  life,  restless, 
boundless,  unfathomable,  infinitely  free,  incorruptible. 
You  may  pour  all  the  filth  of  your  city  sewers  into  it,  you 
cannot  make  it  impure.  It  washes  itself  clean  of  it.  Do 
you  remember  Nietzsche's  aphorism  in  Zarathustra?  It 


130  THE  TRELOARS 

is  the  finest  of  them  all.  '  Man  is  indeed  a  dirty  stream. 
One  must  be  the  ocean  to  be  able  to  take  into  one's  self 
a  dirty  stream  without  becoming  impure.'  I  have  got 
more  strength  and  encouragement  out  of  that  one  sen- 
tence, than  from  all  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  put  together.  Now,  how  much  do  I  shock 
you?" 

She  turned  her  bright  face  to  him  with  a  pretty  gesture 
of  humility,  her  voice  in  the  question  taking  on  a  gracious 
intonation  that  was  irresistible  to  him. 

"  Nothing  you  could  say  or  do,  would  shock  me,"  he 
answered  quickly.  "  I  am  not  exactly  — "  he  hesitated  a 
moment  for  the  right  word,  and  then  added,  "  an  in- 
flexible Puritan.  I  belong  to  the  twentieth  century.  I 
think  that  we  have  loosened  many  a  strangling  knot  and 
bond;  but  —  I  am  going  to  be  perfectly  frank  with  you. 
May  I?" 

"May  you?  If  you  aren't  frank  with  me,  we  shall 
never  be  friends.  We  may  as  well  say  good-by  now, 
and  go  back  home.  By  the  way,  don't  you  like  the  look 
of  that  little  inn  down  the  shore,  yonder  ? " 

"  Yes,  it's  fine !    Do  you  begin  to  feel  hungry  ?  " 

"  I  really  do.  We  shall  have  a  table  facing  the  sea. 
Now  go  on,  please,  with  what  you  were  going  to  say. 
Talk  exactly  as  if  you  were  talking  out  loud  to  yourself. 
Let's  see  how  far  we  agree  on  essentials." 

"  Very  well,  then ;  you  thought  that  you  might  shock 
me  by  what  you  just  said,  but  it  has  a  very  familiar 
sound.  Max  and  I  are  fond  of  discussing  all  sorts  of 
questions,  and  he  has  a  way  of  intoxicating  himself  with 
these  swashing  expressions  —  infinite,  boundless,  un- 
fathomable, etc.,  and  I  sometimes  wonder  if  he  really 
knows  the  actual  significance  of  them.  Now,  you  will 
excuse  me  if  I  remind  you  that  we  are  walking  along  on 
the  bounds  of  what  you  have  just  called  the  boundless 
sea " 

"  O  dear  me ! "  interrupted  Nita,  punctuating  her  ex- 
clamation with  a  deep  drawn  sigh :  "  Are  you  one  of  those 


THE  TRELOARS  131 

dreadful  people  who  live  by  rule  and  talk  by  rule? 
Would  you  be  afraid  to  say  thousands  of  birds  in  a 
great  flock  unless  you  had  counted  them  to  a  bird  to  make 
sure  of  your  statement !  How  awful! " 

11  There !  you  see  I  am  shocking  you,"  said  Dick,  quite 
abashed,  blushing  like  a  schoolboy,  caught  in  an  absurd 
blunder. 

"  No,  you  are  not  shocking  me,  but  you  are  surprising 
me  awfully,  at  not  knowing  the  difference  between  prose 
and  poetry.  Prose  has  her  collar  buttoned  up  chokingly 
tight,  and  poetry  wears  no  collar  at  all;  prose  screws 
up  her  hair  in  a  tight  knot  at  the  back  of  her  head ;  poetry 
has  never  heard  of  a  hair  pin,  and  her  disordered  locks 
fly  loose  about  her  shoulders;  prose  wears  uncomfort- 
ably tight,  high-heeled  shoes,  and  poetry  goes  in  her  bare 
feet ;  and  you,  a  lover  of  the  beautiful,  pay  your  court  to 
prose." 

She  turned  radiantly  upon  him,  her  bright  beautiful 
face  so  alive  with  sense  and  good  feeling  that  he  felt  like 
a  child  in  her  presence. 

"  I've  forgotten,"  she  went  on,  "  what  old  German  hu- 
morist said  this,  but  I  think  it's  awfully  good :  '  Meta- 
physicians are  like  the  mice  that  reason  about  the  archi- 
tect of  the  castle  in  whose  holes  they  dwell.'  I  believe 
with  him  in  the  absolute  futility  of  such  reasoning.  I 
don't  stretch  my  hands  to  the  sky,  and  feel  that  I  have 
touched  it,  because  I  have  stretched  my  full  length. 
However,  I  have  a  philosophy  of  my  own: 

'  O,  come  with  old  Khayyam,  and  leave  the  Wise 
To  talk ;  one  thing  is  certain  that  Life  flies ; 
One  thing  is  certain,  and  the  Rest  is  Lies ; 
The  Flower  that  once  has  blown  forever  dies. 

'Ah,  fill  the  cup:    What  boots  it  to  repeat 
How  Time  is  slipping  underneath  our  Feet; 
Unborn  To-morrow  and  dead  Yesterday, 
Why  fret  about  them,  if  To-day  is  sweet ! '  * 

"  How  you  traduce  yourself ! "  burst  out  Dick  pas- 


132  THE  TRELOARS 

sionately.  "  You  have  never  lived  in  that  shallow  phil- 
osophy. No  one  ever  lived  it  who  has  done  anything  in 
the  world  for  which  the  world  is  grateful  that  he  lived. 
The  past  is  not  dead.  It  is  alive  as  we  are;  and,  of  all 
whom  I  have  ever  known,  you  have  the  most  wonderful 
gift  of  making  it  ever  present.  As  I  saw  you  last  night 
re-creating  Ophelia  as  fresh  and  living  as  when  she 
sprang  from  Shakespeare's  brain,  I  thought  what  a  mag- 
nificent privilege  is  yours ;  and  what  a  constant  challenge 
your  creations  are  to  that  stupid,  impotent  jealousy  of 
the  past  which  rages  like  madness  in  so  many  little 
minds,  to-day." 

They  had  reached  the  tavern,  a  long,  low,  one-story 
building  made  of  weather-stained  pine  logs.  The  room 
into  which  they  entered,  ran  the  whole  length  of  the 
building  and  was  lighted  by  six  large  deep  windows  front- 
ing the  ocean.  A  huge  fireplace,  formed  of  large  irregu- 
lar pebbles  picked  up  from  the  beach,  and  cemented 
together,  occupied  the  center  of  the  north  side-wall.  A 
low  fire  was  burning  in  the  grate.  On  the  mantel,  made 
of  a  granite  slab,  stood  two  shining  brass  candlesticks,  and 
a  number  of  polished  iridescent  abalone  shells.  Knotted 
masses  of  seaweeds  and  kelp  trailed  down  from  both 
sides  of  the  mantel.  The  floor  was  made  of  polished  gray 
and  white  pebbles  cemented  together,  and  arranged  in  a 
simple  geometrical  pattern.  A  score  or  more  of  round 
tables  in  the  room  were  covered  with  white  Japanese  linen 
cloths  with  flying  storks  in  bright  blue  silk,  embroidered  in 
the  corners.  On  each  table,  stood  a  round  glass  bowl, 
filled  with  yellow  and  vermilion  spotted  nasturtiums, 
whose  sweet,  spicy  odor  was  distinctly  perceptible. 

"  Ah !  this  is  what  I  like ! "  said  Nita  with  a  quick 
glance  around  the  room. 

Just  then  a  burst  of  loud  laughter  was  heard  from  a 
group  at  one  of  the  tables. 

"  But  I  don't  like  that,"  she  continued  hastily.  "  Let's 
get  as  far  away  from  that  crowd  as  possible.  Yonder  is 
a  corner  table." 


THE  TRELOARS  133 

They  sat  down  at  the  table  and  Nita  removed  her 
gloves.  A  short,  round-faced  waiter  with  a  snowy  white 
apron  tied  about  his  waist,  and  a  napkin  flung  over  his 
arm,  approached  to  take  their  order. 

"  It's  a  real  shore  dinner,"  said  Nita,  looking  over  the 
menu,  "  and  begins  with  clam  soup ;  and  we  may  have 
lobster,  crab,  or  fish.  I  shall  take  crab." 

"  I,  too,"  said  Dick.  "  Just  give  your  order,  please,  and 
let  the  waiter  double  it." 

Nita  gave  the  order,  adding  a  caution  that  the  celery 
should  be  crisp  and  cool ;  and  when  their  dinner  was  set 
before  them,  they  both  ate  with  a  hearty  appetite,  and 
lingered  over  their  dessert  an  unnecessarily  long  time. 
Dick  had  been  telling  her  that  he  was  very  anxious  to 
have  his  family  and  some  intimate  friends  see  her  play 
in  Oakland  the  next  Tuesday  night,  and  if  possible  meet 
her  at  the  close  of  the  performance.  He  hoped  they 
might  see  her  in  something  really  fine.  He  had  especially 
liked  her  Ophelia.  Would  Hamlet  be  repeated  in  Oak- 
land? 

"  No,  we  were  not  successful  with  Hamlet  after  the 
first  night.  The  truth  is  that  Shakespeare  does  not  be- 
long to  the  modern  stage.  All  efforts  to  revive  him  owe 
their  success  to  costly  and  spectacular  setting.  If  it 
could  have  been  advertised  that  Ophelia  would  wear  a 
gown  costing  six  or  seven  thousand  dollars,  or  that  the 
queen  was  to  wear  real  jewels  worth  a  fortune,  we  could 
have  packed  the  house,  as  a  fashion  show.  Of  course, 
we  couldn't  do  that." 

"  Isn't  that  ridiculous,"  said  Dick,  throwing  himself 
back  in  his  chair  with  an  expression  of  disgust.  "  As  if 
the  seventeenth  century  could  think  and  feel,  and  we  could 
only  stare ! " 

"  That's  all ! "  answered  Nita,  keenly  enjoying  Dick's 
protest,  "  but  after  all,  don't  you  really  think  that  Shakes- 
peare is  very  much  greater  and  very  much  more  satis- 
factory in  one's  solitary  reading  of  him  than  on  the 
stage?  He  gives  you  meat  that  needs  chewing,  not  pap 


134  THE  TRELOARS 

that  can  be  swallowed  at  once.  So  I  don't  feel  hope- 
less about  the  stage,  because  Shakespeare  is  not  really 
popular.  He  is  safe  among  the  immortals.  There  al- 
ways will  be  a  few  people  big  enough  to  read  and  enjoy 
him,  in  spite  of  Tolstoi's  deep  mouthed  barking  against 
him,  and  the  sharp  little  yelping  of  Bernard  Shaw.  But 
what  does  discourage  me  is  the  growing  demand  for  an 
appeal  to  the  eyes.  We  shall  all  be  swallowed  up  in  mov- 
ing pictures  soon." 

Dick's  eyes  glistened.  He  had  not  forgotten  their 
argument  by  the  sea-shore ;  he  had  not  forgotten  her  as- 
sumed indifference  to  the  dead  yesterdays,  so,  clasping  his 
hands,  and  leaning  over  the  table  towards  her,  he  looked 
steadily  into  her  eyes  and  said : 

"  What  difference  does  that  make  to  you  if  there  is  no 
to-morrow  and  no  yesterday,  and  all  there  is,  is  just  you 
and  I  and  the  empty  crab  shells  ?  " 

And  she,  leaning  over,  too,  her  dark  eyes  sparkling, 
answered  gaily : 

"Do  allow  me  the  privilege  of  being  inconsistent.  To 
be  consistent  is  the  peculiar  property  of  a  straight  line. 
To  be  a  human  being  is  to  be  inconsistent  and  sinuous  — 
it's  Hogarth's  line  of  beauty  and  grace.  And  I  am  alive, 
aren't  you  glad?" 

She  asked  that  question  with  that  delicious  irresistible 
inflection  which  was  one  of  her  .greatest  charms,  and 
Dick's  heart  leaped  in  response  to  it.  Hardly  knowing 
what  he  was  doing,  his  hand  reached  out  for  her  small 
hand  on  the  table  and  pressed  it  fervently,  forgetting 
where  he  was,  forgetting  everything,  except  that  she  was 
there  before  him,  the  only  woman  in  the  world  to  him 
just  now. 

"  Glad?  "  he  repeated,  "  not  only  glad,  but  so  grateful, 
and  so  made  over,  that  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  only 
begun  to  live,  since  I  knew  you." 

She  drew  her  hand  gently  away  whispering  cautiously : 
"  I  am  afraid  the  waiter  is  looking." 

Dick  started,  blushed  vividly,  and  said :  "  I  don't  care. 
I  am  sure  he's  used  to  that." 


THE  TRELOARS  135 

He  had  revealed  his  great  secret,  and  she  had  not  re- 
pulsed him.  There  was  no  disapproval  in  her  lovely  face. 
It  is  true  that  its  serenity  was  untroubled,  but  he  did  not 
expect  her  to  love  him  all  at  once,  as  he  loved  her.  That 
was  impossible.  Who  was  he  that  he  could  hope  for 
such  a  miracle  as  that?  All  he  could  hope  was  that  he 
should  not  offend  her  by  his  brusqueness,  his  crudeness, 
his  impetuous  inexperienced  youth. 

"  You  see,"  continued  Nita,  "  dramatic  art  is  the  central 
interest  of  my  life,  as  literature  is  of  yours.  I  think  we 
actors  are  really  as  Shakespeare  says,  '  the  abstract,  and 
brief  chronicles  of  the  time.'  Now  to  decline  from  that 
high  office  to  pander  to  a  love  of  glare  and  the  shows  of 
things,  and  the  puerile  love  of  impossible  adventures  and 
hairbreadth  escapes  seems  to  me  like  going  back  to  in- 
fancy and  creeping  around  on  the  floor  after  bright  red 
balls.  You  will  excuse  my  emphasis.  You  see  I  can  be 
emphatic  in  my  own  line." 

"  Thank  God  for  that !  "  exclaimed  Dick  fervently. 
"  I  don't  think  we  can  be  too  emphatic  about  the  integrity 
of  the  arts,  any  more  than  on  a  question  of  the  integrity  of 
foods  —  adulteration  in  either  case  is  a  violation  of  our 
right  to  have  what  is  pure  and  wholesome." 

"  Undoubtedly ;  but  you  forget  that  old  adage  that 
what  is  one  man's  meat  is  another  man's  poison.  That 
is  especially  true  in  the  arts,  and  it  doesn't  seem  possible 
to  set  up  a  fixed  standard,  there.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
isn't  right  that  every  man  should  make  his  own  standard 
—  or  if 'he  does  he  should  keep  it  strictly  for  his  own 
private  use,  unless  he  has  the  gift  of  judgment." 

Out  in  the  open  air  again,  they  made  their  way  to  the 
park,  continuing  their  conversation,  until  it  drifted  again 
to  the  question  of  the  next  week's  play. 

"  And  so,  as  we  didn't  succeed  with  Shakespeare," 
Nita  was  saying,  "  we  are  going  to  try  a  more  modern 
play,  Sapho  or  Ibsen's  Doll's  House." 

"Why  Sapho?"  said  Dick  hastily,  instinctively  recoil- 
ing from  seeing  her  in  that  role.  "  There  is  no  action 
in  it." 


136  THE  TRELOARS 

"  No  action?  Isn't  powerful  emotion  action?  In  fact, 
it  is  the  only  action  that  is  an  essential  part  of  literature. 
Action  is  not  adventure.  Action  is  whatever  brings  into 
play  the  strength  or  weakness  of  a  character.  In  that 
sense,  Sapho  is  full  of  action.  It  is  the  struggle  of  a 
woman  to  right  herself  in  the  current  of  a  powerful  emo- 
tion. It's  a  question  of  keeping  her  head  above  water,  a 
moment's  weakness  or  lassitude  and  she  goes  down.  It 
is  intensely  interesting  to  see  how  she  recovers  herself 
and  abandons  her  ungrateful  lover  to  accept  devotion 
from  another,  and  give  gratitude  in  return." 

"You  call  that  beautiful?"  said  Dick.  "To  me  it  is 
horrible." 

"  I  didn't  say  that  it  was  beautiful.  I  said  it  was  in- 
teresting, but  I  don't  know  why  I  should  not  have  said 
beautiful,  if  by  beautiful  we  mean  the  triumph  of  strength 
over  weakness." 

"  You  mean  the  triumph  of  egotism  over  generosity  — 
the  triumph  of  the  good  swimmer  who  lets  his  companion 
drown,  while  he  makes  for  the  shore." 

"  If  you  like  to  call  it  that,  yes.  And  I  don't  see  why 
you  should  think  your  companion's  life  of  more  import- 
ance than  your  own.  Why  should  you  risk  your  life 
for  his  ?  Take  his  importance  for  a  model  and  kill  power 
in  yourself?  Does  not  nature  say  no  to  that,  when  she 
means  that  the  fittest  shall  survive  ?  " 

"  I  know  that  text  in  the  new  gospel  of  science ;  but 
it  is  not  true  for  human  nature.  How  shall  we  judge 
who  is  fittest  to  survive?  Love  is  the  holiest  relation  be- 
tween human  beings,  and  there  are  times  when  love  de- 
mands a  supreme  sacrifice." 

"  And  always  demands  it  of  the  woman,  never  of  the 
man,"  said  Nita,  her  face  flushing,  and  her  voice  taking 
on  a  sharp  note  of  sarcasm.  "  Always  the  primrose  path 
of  dalliance  for  him,  and  the  steep  and  thorny  way  for 
her.  Forgiveness  for  all  his  excesses,  contempt  and  os- 
tracism for  her,  if  she  but  once  overstep  her  bounds ! 
Absurd !  no,  not  absurd,  but  infamous !  O  your  beautiful 


THE  TRELOARS  137 

theories  of  life  that  stand  between  you  and  real  life,  as 
it  is !  You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  them,  as  you  are  of 
any  other  ignorance.  I  have  an  immense  respect  for  a 
woman  who  can  take  her  life  in  her  own  hands,  as  a  free 
man  does,  and  mold  it  as  she  wills,  defying  conventions, 
living  according  to  the  dictates  of  her  reason  and  her 
heart,  keeping  her  faith  in  herself  and  her  respect  for 
herself  in  the  teeth  of  a  world  that  refuses  them  to  her, 
unless  she  has  genius.  Of  course,  when  she  has  that, 
she  brings  the  world  to  her  feet,  as  Aspasia  did,  as  George 
Eliot  did  and  George  Sand  did.  And  when  she  can't  do 
that,  she  can  wear  her  scarlet  letter  on  her  breast  before 
the  world  as  Hester  Prynne  did  and  make  it  her  orna- 
ment and  the  symbol  of  the  most  exquisite  courage  that  a 
woman  has  ever  shown ;  —  the  scarlet  flower  in  the  snow- 
white  purity  of  an  otherwise  blameless  life." 

Nita  was  speaking  in  a  rapid,  animated  way,  her  face 
flushed  with  an  unusual  glow,  while  Dick  had  turned  al- 
ternately white  and  red.  Never  had  she  seemed  so  fas- 
cinating to  him  as  at  this  moment  when  every  word  she 
said  was  a  wound  to  him. 

"  But  the  family,  the  home,"  he  faltered :  "  You  can 
build  nothing  permanent  on  the  shifty  foundations  of 
free  love.  Somewhere  a  man  must  feel  the  solid  rock 
under  his  feet,  if  his  life  is  to  have  any  value  at  all." 

"  But  the  love  between  man  and  woman  is  no  such 
rock;  it  is  quicksand.  Nothing  in  the  world  is  so  shift- 
ing, so  uncertain,  so  entirely  beyond  the  control  of  the 
will  or  of  reason.  Shall  we  sit  down  on  this  bench  in 
the  shade?  Lovely  here,  isn't  it?  So  quiet,  so  cool. 
No  —  there  is  nothing  permanent  in  love,  and  it  is  a 
good  thing  there  is  not.  It  is  a  moment  of  intense  self- 
absorption,  the  egotism  of  two  made  one,  for  whom  the 
rest  of  the  world  does  not  exist.  But  I  am  shocking 
you !  "  and  she  looked  curiously  at  Dick's  excited  face. 

"  Worse  than  that.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  reading 
Ouida  and  Bernard  Shaw.  They  both  give  me  the  same 
sort  of " 


138  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Nausea !  "  she  finished  for  him.  They  were  both  si- 
lent for  a  while,  then  she  said  softly,  "  I  know  it." 

All  her  aggressiveness  gave  way  now.  She  was  anx- 
ious not  to  spoil  their  beautiful  day  together  by  leaving  so 
disagreeable  an  impression  with  him.  She  had  said  quite 
enough  to  give  him  a  clue  to  her  real  feelings.  There 
was  no  use  in  emphasizing  them  —  and  making  herself  out 
coarser  and  harder  than  she  really  was ;  so  she  resumed 
her  talk  in  a  calm,  sweet,  conciliatory  way  that  was  like 
a  healing  balm  to  the  wounds  she  had  made. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  to  have  given  you  that  sickish  feel- 
ing ;  but  it  is  better  to  be  quite  frank  with  each  other ;  and 
I  wish  you  to  know  that  I  think  that  the  same  fault 
which  in  a  man  is  called  a  venial  slip  should  not  be  ir- 
reparable in  a  woman;  and  that  there  is  nothing  sacred 
in  a  human  law  which  deeper  human  insight  and  larger 
human  knowledge  may  not  set  aside  without  sacrilege 
or  sin.  I  see  that  you  can't  think  of  Sapho  as  I  do,  yet, 
and  I  don't  mean  to  pain  you  unnecessarily  by  playing  it. 
The  manager  prefers  trying  Ibsen,  and  I  shall  make  no 
objection.  Besides,  I  am  not  sure  but  the  public  needs 
a  good  course  in  Ibsen  to  give  it  something  to  think  about. 
But  it's  getting  late,  and  we  must  be  going  back  home. 
Let's  fall  back  to  where  we  agree  again.  We  both  agree 
that  it  has  been  a  perfect  day,  don't  we  ?  " 

She  rose  from  the  bench  as  she  said  this  and  looked 
about  her. 

"  Yes,"  answered  Dick,  "  it  has  been  a  perfect  day, 
and  let  us  agree  that  it  isn't  the  last  perfect  one  that 
we  shall  have  together.  Will  you  ?  " 

She  smiled  indulgently  at  him,  and  said  nothing. 

"  I  need  you,"  he  said  impulsively,  like  the  great  boy 
he  was.  "  I  need  to  know  that  in  this  big  cosmopolitan 
city,  with  its  thousand  interests  foreign  to  my  own, 
there  is  some  one  with  whom  I  can  talk  freely  about  what 
means  most  to  me." 

She  told  him  how  highly  complimented  she  felt  by 
this  request,  and  how  gladly  she  would  listen  to  whatever 


THE  TRELOARS  139 

he  wished  to  say,  but  that  she  was  not  always  mistress  of 
her  time  as  she  had  been  to-day,  and  that  it  might  be 
weeks  before  she  would  be  free  again;  however,  the 
day  had  been  so  very  delightful  that  she  certainly  wished 
to  repeat  it.  They  passed  a  photographer  taking  snap- 
shots and  finishing  photographs  in  ten  minutes. 

"  Shall  we  be  taken  together  ?  "  asked  Dick. 

"  O,  no,"  answered  Nita,  taking  his  arm  and  drawing 
him  away,  "  you  don't  know  how  dreadfully  silly  we  shall 
feel  in  looking  at  a  picture  like  that  after  we  have 
quarreled." 

"After  we  have  quarreled?  What  nonsense!  We 
shall  never  quarrel.  At  any  rate,  /  shan't  and  it  takes 
two  to  make  a  quarrel." 

"  O,  we  shall  quarrel  some  day!" 

"  Never !  never !  To  me  that  would  be  like  quarreling 
with  life." 

It  was  no  exaggeration.  He  meant  it  literally.  She 
was  to  him  something  as  necessary  and  vivifying  as  the  air 
he  breathed.  When  they  separated  in  the  city,  he  felt  as 
if  he  were  saying  good-by  to  much  the  greater  part  of 
himself,  and  as  if  all  his  past  life  had  been  but  a  prep- 
aration for  knowing  her. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"DON'T  you  really  want  to  go  with  us,  father?  Dick 
will  be  so  disappointed  if  you  don't." 

Margaret  Treloar  looked  up  from  her  sewing.  She 
was  basting  some  lace  in  the  sleeves  of  Catherine's  even- 
ing gown,  and  her  father  was  reading,  tranquilly  smok- 
ing a  cigarette  of  his  own  making  —  for  the  preparation 
of  which,  he  always  carried  about  with  him  a  little 
leather  pouch  of  good  tobacco  and  a  small  case  filled 
with  leaves  of  white  tissue  paper.  He  put  down  his 
book,  removed  his  cigarette  from  his  mouth,  and  ex- 
haled a  puff  of  smoke  into  the  air. 


140  THE  TRELOARS 

"No,  I  don't,  Margaret,  but  I  suppose  that  when  it 
comes  to  a  question  of  disappointments,  you'd  rather  dis- 
appoint me  than  Dick,  wouldn't  you  ?  " 

"  Why,  no,  I  wouldn't,  father ;  on  the  contrary ;  but 
Dick  is  so  enthusiastic  about  this  actress,  that  if  she  is 
really  as  fine  as  he  thinks  she  is,  you're  going  to  miss 
a  treat  by  not  seeing  her." 

"  But  I  have  already  got  a  treat  in  my  hand  here,"  and 
he  held  up  his  book.  "  Besides,  I  am  very  well  aware  of 
what  a  young  man's  enthusiasm  about  a  pretty  actress 
means.  Do  you  remember  young  Pendennis  and  Miss 
Fotheringay  ?  " 

"  How  ridiculous,  father !  Our  Dick  has  more  sense 
than  to  fall  in  love  with  an  actress." 

Her  father  looked  at  her  with  an  amused  expression. 
He  loved  to  tease  her  and  the  occasion  to  do  so,  effect- 
ively, offered  itself  rarely,  for  there  were  few  subjects 
concerning  which  her  serenity  could  be  ruffled.  Dick  was 
one  of  them. 

"  Our  Dick  is  like  every  young  man,  and  you  must 
never  trust  the  good  sense  of  any  man  under  sev- 
enty when  a  pretty  woman  is  concerned." 

"  According  to  that,  you  yourself  wouldn't  be  quite  safe 
with  Miss  Fotheringay." 

"  O,  as  to  that,  I  think  it  would  take  more  than  a  Foth- 
eringay to  throw  me  off  my  balance." 

"  Well,  I  should  hope  so,  father." 

Treloar  took  another  puff  at  his  cigarette  and  added: 
"  I  don't  know,  though.  There  is  the  great  Goethe  as 
proof  that  a  man  never  can  be  quite  sure  of  himself,  even 
after  seventy." 

"  Yes.  I  never  could  understand  how  a  man  so  su- 
perbly intellectual  as  Goethe,  could  forget  himself  for 
a  chit  of  a  girl." 

"  That's  because  love  isn't  a  question  of  the  intellect  at 
all.  It  is  a  question  of  the  health  and  activity  of  the 
senses,  and  sometimes  of  a  pathological  condition  of 
them." 


THE  TRELOARS  141 

"  O  father,  what  an  ugly  thing  to  say !  " 

"  What  has  its  ugliness  to  do  with  it,  if  it  is  the  truth  ? 
But  that's  the  way  with  you  women,  you  can't  stand  any 
truth  that  isn't  pretty.  You  want  all  your  truths 
wrapped  up  in  tissue  paper  and  smelling  of  attar  of 
roses.  You  are  proud  of  your  defects  and  deficiencies, 
and  think  they  are  evidences  of  your  superior  delicacy 
and  fineness.  You  call  yourself  a  sensible  woman. 
Don't  you  think  it's  about  time  you  were  learning  to 
face  disagreeable  truths  without  putting  a  veil  on  ?  " 

Treloar  coughed  slightly,  and  looked  at  Margaret  with 
a  kindly  twinkle  in  his  eyes  that  belied  the  tone  of  his 
flouting,  and  Margaret,  reaching  for  her  scissors  to  cut 
a  thread,  answered  the  look  with  a  smile,  as  she  re- 
plied : 

"  I  am  no  more  afraid  of  disagreeable  truths  than  you 
are,  father,  once  I  know  that  they  are  truths.  By  the 
way,  I  had  to  face  a  rather  disagreeable  one  last  night, 
when  Catherine  told  me  that  she  and  young  Raymond  are 
engaged,  and  expect  to  marry  after  his  graduation  next 
summer." 

"  Why  should  that  be  disagreeable  to  you  ?  " 

"  Because  Catherine  will  not  have  finished  her  univer- 
sity course,  and  I  think  she's  rather  young  to  take  up  the 
serious  duties  of  a  household." 

"  She  will  be  twenty,  and  you  were  a  great  deal 
younger  than  that,  when  a  much  heavier  task  fell  to  your 
shoulders." 

"  Yes,  but  I  think  I  had  a  broader  back  than  Ca- 
therine's." 

"  Well,  Catherine's  back  will  have  a  chance  to  develop. 
But  she  won't  find  many  serious  duties.  She's  modern. 
She'll  do  everything  on  the  push  the  button  plan.  As  for 
her  university  course,  she's  getting  a  fine  case  of  mental 
indigestion  with  it.  I  think  it  will  be  better  for  her  to 
stop.  What's  funny  to  me  is  that  with  all  her  pro- 
nounced admiration  for  originality,  she  should  have 
chosen  Raymond  who  is  about  as  original  as  a  hen's  egg. 
What's  he  going  to  do  ?  " 


142  THE  TRELOARS 

"  He  has  an  appointment  to  a  vacancy  in  some  college 
of  the  Middle  West,  in  the  mathematical  department." 

"  Mathematics  ?  O,  I  see,  now,  what  is  original  in  him 
to  Catherine:  he's  logical,  and  that  is  always  original  to 
a  woman." 

"  He  isn't  a  bad  sort  of  fellow,  father,  and  then  he's 
fond  of  Catherine  and  that  is  the  main  thing." 

"  No,  it  isn't.  The  main  thing  is  whether  he  has  any 
lime  in  his  backbone.  He  strikes  me  as  being  rather  a 
soft  young  sapling.  There's  not  much  go  in  him,  or  he 
wouldn't  want  to  be  a  school  ma'am,  if  he  had  muscle 
enough  to  saw  wood  or  break  stones." 

"  Didn't  you  say  the  other  day  that  the  trouble  with 
popular  education  in  America  is  that  it  is  almost  en- 
in  the  hands  of  women?  " 

effeminate  men  —  you've  forgotten  that  part  of 
it.  The  enormous  competition  with  women  keeps  a 
teacher's  work  and  his  salary  on  a  low  plane,  so  that  no 
man  with  any  capacity  for  business,  or  for  independent 
exertion  is  willing  to  go  into  it.  Is  Raymond  aiming  at 
anything  else  ?  " 

"  No,  I  think  not." 

"  Wants  a  soft  but  very  close  little  nest  to  curl  up  in 
for  the  rest  of  his  life,  eh  ?  Well,  that's  his  business,  not 
ours." 

"  But  it  is  somewhat  ours,  when  he  wishes  Catherine 
to  curl  up  with  him." 

"  No,  that's  her  business." 

"  But  marriage  is  a  family  question  and  not  merely  the 
concern  of  two  people  in  love." 

"  You  are  very  old-fashioned  in  your  ideas,  Margaret." 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  am.  There  are  some  things  that 
fashion  has  nothing  to  do  with.  Motherhood,  father- 
hood, family  life  with  its  filial  and  parental  responsibili- 
ties, what  have  these  to  with  fashion  ?  " 

"  Everything,  because  they  are  based  on  unstable 
points  of  view,  unless  you  admit  a  morality  with  a  sane- 


THE  TRELOARS  143 

tion  and  obligation  such  as  the  Christian  religion  gives 
us." 

"  But  I  admit  that,  as  you  very  well  know." 

"  That's  your  idiosyncrasy.  Science  shows  its  fallacy. 
Dr.  Parker  can't  admit  it,  if  he  is  logical." 

"  Then  thank  God  that  he  is  illogical.  There  never 
was  a  more  devoted  father,  nor  an  honester  man.  I  be- 
lieve you  would  really  delight  in  seeing  him  beat  Dolly 
just  to  prove  that  a  materialistic  creed  necessarily  ends  in 
cruelty." 

Mr.  Treloar  chuckled.  He  was  goading  Margaret  out 
of  her  serenity  and  enjoying  himself  very  much.  An  ar- 
gument was  his  daily  bread. 

"  Margaret,  you're  pretty  nearly  a  hopeless  case.  Ac- 
tion is  everything  with  you,  the  motive  behind  it  is  noth- 
ing. Only  some  great  calamity  can  save  you  as  a  rational 
being,  some  prodigious  fact  that  will  knock  you  off  your 
pins,  and  force  you  to  get  on  a  firmer  footing  with  regard 
to  the  profound  realities  of  life.  Dick  is  a  good  deal  like 
you.  Both  of  you  face  the  world  like  two  babes  in  the 
wood,  for  whom  all  the  rest  of  the  world  is  just  as  inno- 
cent. Some  day,  you'll  both  get  a  good  jog,  and  then 
you'll  recall  a  few  things  that  your  old  Dad  used  to  tell 
you." 

"Will  our  new  wisdom  be  worth  the  jog,  father?" 

"  That  depends  on  whether  you  prefer  waking  to  sleep- 
ing. I  do." 

"But  you  are  not  to  prefer  it  to-night,  father.  If 
you  won't  go  into  Oakland  with  us,  you  are  not  to  sit  up 
till  we  come  back,  do  you  hear  ?  " 

"  That  will  depend  on  whether  I  am  sleepy  or  wakeful. 
Is  Dick  coming  out  for  you  ?  " 

"  No,  we  are  going  with  the  Parkers.  Dick  is  to  meet 
us  at  five  minutes  of  eight  in  the  lobby  of  the  theater." 

But  Dick  had  been  standing  in  the  lobby  of  the  theater 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  before  the  appointed  time,  trying 


144  THE  TRELOARS 

with  all  his  might  to  subdue  the  inner  tumult  which,  in 
spite  of  all  his  efforts,  announced  itself  in  his  excited 
face  and  manner.  One  might  have  thought  that  he  was 
on  trial  for  his  life,  by  his  restless  pacing  up  and  down, 
his  frequent  sallies  into  the  street  and  back  again.  In  the 
last  of  them,  he  got  sight  of  his  little  party,  so  anxiously 
expected,  and  he  hastened  to  meet  them. 

"  So  glad  to  see  you  all,"  he  cried,  shaking  hands  with 
each  one  of  them.  "But  where's  father?" 

"  I  couldn't  persuade  him  to  come,"  answered  Mar- 
garet, leading  the  group  into  the  theater  with  Dick. 

"Isn't  he  feeling  well?  —  but  you  wouldn't  have  left 
him  if  he  weren't." 

"  Yes,  he  is  perfectly  well,  but  he  prefers  his  Bergson 
and  his  own  meditations,  to-night,  to  any  other  amuse- 
ment." 

"  But  I  did  so  want  him  to  come." 

"  I  told  him  you  would  be  disappointed." 

"So  I  am  —  awfully!  Our  box  is  the  second  to  the 
right." 

"  O,  Dick,  what  did  you  get  a  box  for  ?  We  shall  be 
so  conspicuous." 

"  You  won't  be  conspicuous  as  soon  as  the  play  com- 
mences. Nobody  will  notice  you.  There!  isn't  this 
cosy  ?  "  he  asked,  after  seeing  his  little  party  comfortably 
seated. 

"  Awfully  kind  of  you,  Doctor,  to  come,"  he  went  on. 
"  I  have  an  idea  that  when  father  decided  to  stay  at  home, 
he  thought  you'd  keep  him  company,  didn't  he  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  think  he  did.  He  seemed  a  little  piqued  that 
I  should  prefer  Miss  Fotheringay  to  him." 

"Miss  who?" 

"  Only  one  of  father's  nicknames,"  said  Margaret 
quickly,  blushing  vividly  at  the  repetition  of  the  name. 

"  Isn't  that  the  name  of  the  leading  actress  ?  "  asked 
Dr.  Parker,  looking  at  his  program.  "  No,  it  isn't.  It  is 
Nita  Normand  as  Nora." 

At  this  moment  the  orchestra  commenced  playing,  and 


THE  TRELOARS  145 

when  the  music  ceased,  the  lights  were  turned  off,  and  the 
curtain  rolled  up,  revealing  the  brilliantly  lighted  stage- 
setting  of  a  comfortable  living-room.  The  ringing  of  a 
door  bell  was  heard,  then  the  voice  of  a  woman  cheerily 
humming  a  melodious  air,  and  Nora  entered  enveloped  in 
winter  wraps,  her  arms  laden  with  Christmas  packages. 
The  bright  face  under  the  small  round  hat  was  so  ra- 
diant with  good  will  that  the  audience  burst  into  applause. 

Margaret  turned  to  look  at  Dick.  His  face  was  as  ra- 
diant as  that  on  the  stage,  and  he  was  involuntarily  lean- 
ing forward  as  if  he  were  hungrily  drinking  in  every  ges- 
ture, every  glance  of  the  beautiful  woman  before  him. 
No,  she  was  not  a  Miss  Fotheringay;  she  would  not  be 
stupid  off  the  stage  any  more  than  on  it ;  there  was  noth- 
ing dull  or  blundering  in  her  rendition  of  the  spoiled, 
petted,  charming  woman  in  revolt  against  conventions 
and  illusions.  Margaret  followed  the  action  of  the  play 
in  a  tension  of  feeling  hardly  less  acute  than  that  which 
absorbed  Dick ;  but  it  was  a  feeling,  not  like  his,  made  of 
pure  admiration  and  delight;  it  was  a  conflict  of  emo- 
tions that  disturbed  and  excited  her  disagreeably. 

"  Isn't  she  wonderful ? "  asked  Dick  all  aglow,  as  the 
curtain  fell  on  the  last  act. 

"  The  actress  ?  "  answered  Margaret,  rising,  "  yes,  but 
as  for  Nora,  I  don't  believe  in  her." 

"  You  don't  ?  Well,  come  and  say  that  to  the  actress 
herself.  I  want  you  all  to  meet  her,  you  know ;  so  don't 
put  on  your  wraps  yet,  girls." 

"  O,  no,  Dick,"  pleaded  Margaret,  looking  very  un- 
happy. "  What  would  she  care  about  meeting  us !  It 
would  only  bore  her.  Then  we  have  a  long  ride  before 
us,  and  it  is  late." 

"  And  you  have  an  auto,  and  can  get  over  the  ground 
in  half  an  hour ;  and  it  won't  bore  her  at  all,  because  she 
knows  all  about  it,  and  is  waiting  now  behind  the  scenes 
to  meet  you.  Come,  Margaret,  please  don't  refuse  me 
this.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  see  her,  Dolly  ? "  and  he 
turned  his  excited  face  to  Dolly,  searching  an  approval 
of  his  invitation. 


146  THE  TRELOARS 

It  was  the  first  time  during  the  evening  that  he  had 
taken  any  particular  notice  of  her ;  and  Dolly  could  only 
say  tremulously: 

"  Why  yes,  if  you  would  like  us  to." 

She  would  have  made  the  same  reply,  if  he  had  asked 
her  to  go  to  the  stake.  Indeed  it  was  hardly  a  less  pain- 
ful martyrdom  to  consent  to  meet  this  brilliant,  beautiful 
woman.  The  whole  evening  had  been  an  exquisite  tor- 
ture to  her.  She  had  been  seated  where  not  a  movement, 
not  an  expression  of  Dick's  could  escape  her,  and  she 
read  his  heart  by  the  beatings  of  her  own,  as  if  it  had  been 
an  open  book.  She  followed  her  father  closely,  as  they 
all  went  to  the  back  of  the  stage,  where  the  actress  was 
waiting  for  them.  Dolly  thought  her  even  more  beauti- 
ful than  she  had  appeared  in  the  play.  Margaret  recog- 
nized that,  too,  but  it  did  not  efface  in  her  the  first  real 
antipathy  which  she  had  ever  felt  for  anyone.  This  an- 
tipathy was  the  intuitive  recognition  that  they  stood  for 
types  of  womanhood  directly  opposed  to  each  other,  in 
sentiment  and  feeling,  and  therefore,  when  Margaret  tried 
to  greet  Nita,  she  felt  all  the  agreeable  conventionalities 
of  social  intercourse  freezing  on  her  lips.  However,  she 
managed  to  say: 

"  You  have  made  a  very  living  and  real  interpretation 
of  Nora." 

Dick,  entirely  unconscious  of  any  hostile  under-current 
of  feeling  between  the  two  women,  added  delightedly : 

"  My  sister  says  that  she  believes  in  you,  but  she  does 
not  at  all  believe  in  Nora. 

"  But  that  ought  not  to  be.  I  should  have  made  her  be- 
lieve in  Nora.  That  was  my  task.  How  was  it  that  I 
made  you  skeptical,  Miss  Treloar  ?  I  am  sure  you  can  tell 
me.  You  have  no  idea  how  few  people  can  really  state 
their  criticisms  definitely,  but  I  am  sure  that  you  can." 

Poor  Margaret  challenged  unawares,  protested  that  she 
really  had  no  criticism  to  make  except  that  of  inconsist- 
ency in  Ibsen's  delineation  of  the  character.  So  charm- 


THE  TRELOARS  147 

ing  and  intelligent  a  woman  could  not  at  the  same  time  be 
so  utterly  ignorant  and  shallow,  and  so  utterly  wanting  in 
true  maternal  sentiment.  So  far  as  her  experience  went, 
it  was  a  combination  of  opposite  qualities  which  she  found 
it  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  reconcile. 

Nita  remarked  that  these  inconsistencies  were  very 
common  in  human  nature ;  and  that  in  fact,  the  impossi- 
bility of  reducing  a  living  character  to  a  system,  was 
what  made  a  man  or  woman  more  interesting  than  an 
automaton.  You  were  never  so  sure  of  any  one  that  you 
could  infallibly  predict  how  he  would  act  under  certain 
conditions.  Ibsen  was  unable  to  put  The  Doll's  House  in 
its  original  form  on  the  stage  in  the  northern  part  of 
Germany.  He  had  to  change  the  conclusion  into  a  rec- 
onciliation instead  of  a  separation.  Nora's  husband 
leads  her  to  the  door  of  the  children's  room  and  the 
curtain  falls.  Of  course,  that  was  a  forced  concession  to 
family  traditions,  which  he  retracted  wherever  the  idea 
of  personal  liberty  is  at  all  developed  and  recognized. 

"  But  personal  liberty  ends  where  duty  begins,"  ex- 
claimed Margaret. 

"  Not  with  Ibsen,"  replied  Nita.  "  According  to  him, 
there  is  no  duty  that  precedes  that  of  personal  liberty; 
and  duty  ceases  where  it  infringes  upon  personal  liberty." 

"  A  very  comfortable  code  of  ethics  for  shirkers,"  said 
Margaret  with  heightened  color  and  an  unwonted  sharp- 
ness in  her  voice. 

Dick  saw  at  once  that  Margaret  and  Nita  were  ap- 
proaching dangerous  ground,  and  with  a  nervous  laugh, 
he  said  to  Nita: 

"  You  will  find  it  a  hopeless  task  to  convince  my  sister 
that  Nora  is  to  be  justified  in  running  away  from  her 
babies;  for  she  has  had  the  peculiar  experience  of  being 
mother  and  sister  to  myself  and  Catherine.  She  knows 
all  the  delight  of  tucking  little  children  into  their  beds 
at  night  and  giving  them  a  bath  in  the  morning.  She 
would  not  have  resigned  her  tasks  for  anything  in  the 


148  THE  TRELOARS 

world.  Illusions  might  have  burst  about  her,  thick  as 
shooting  stars  on  an  August  night,  and  she  would  have 
stuck  her  task  out,  wouldn't  you,  Margaret  ?  " 

He  put  his  hand  affectionately  upon  her  arm  and  looked 
at  her  so  tenderly  that  her  lip  quivered  and  her  eyes  mois- 
tened. She  was  so  intensely  grateful  to  him,  and  for  the 
moment  so  reassured  of  his  devotion  to  her,  that  it  was 
with  difficulty,  she  refrained  from  throwing  her  arms 
about  his  neck  and  weeping  on  his  shoulder.  Nita,  see- 
ing her  emotion,  felt  touched  and  said  gently : 

"  I  quite  understand  it,  and  really  I  must  congratulate 
you,  Miss  Treloar,  on  the  success  of  your  training." 

Dick  playfully  bowed  his  thanks  to  Nita,  and  the  con- 
versation becoming  general,  soon  finished  with  the  cus- 
tomary leave-taking. 

"  Can't  you  come  home  with  us  ?  "  said  Margaret,  as 
Dick  accompanied  the  little  party  to  their  automobile. 

"  No,  thank  you,  Margaret,  dear,  I  really  can't.  I  have 
an  article  to  finish  before  I  go  to  bed  to-night,  but  I'll 
be  out  Sunday,  sure.  You  and  Dolly  will  be  over,  won't 
you,  Doctor  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  unless  the  unexpected  happens." 

"  Did  you  really  enjoy  the  evening,  Dolly?  "  Dick  asked, 
tucking  the  lap  robe  close  about  her;  and  Dolly's  brave 
lips  belied  her  heart,  and  gave  him  the  answer  he  expected 
to  hear,  then  she  asked : 

"Where  can  I  get  Ibsen's  plays?  We  haven't  them, 
and  I  should  like  so  much  to  read  them,  now." 

"  I  have  most  of  them  at  home.  They  are  on  the  top 
shelf  of  the  little  book-case  in  my  room.  Margaret,  let 
Dolly  have  them,  and  I'll  bring  out  the  latest  plays  when 
I  come  home,  Sunday.  My !  but  the  fog  is  thick  to-night, 
isn't  it?  You'll  need  all  your  lights  on,  Doctor.  Well, 
good  night  to  you  all,  I  wish  I  was  going  out  with  you ! " 

Did  he  really  wish  it?  He  watched  them  drive  away 
with  a  vague  involuntary  smile  upon  his  face,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  another  thought  had  as  utterly  effaced  them 
from  his  mind,  as  the  fog  effaced  them  from  his  sight. 


THE  TRELOARS          149 


CHAPTER  XV 

PROUD  and  chaste  women  who  feel  deeply,  have  a  won- 
derful power  of  concealing  the  wounds  of  the  heart,  and 
the  more  deeply  they  suffer,  the  more  instinctively  they 
recoil  from  any  parade  of  it.  Like  Hamlet  they  are  able 
to  jest  and  flout  with  death  in  their  hearts,  and  they  would 
endure  a  thousand  tortures  rather  than  bare  their  grief  to 
the  public. 

Dolly,  waking  up  after  a  fitful  sleep  in  the  early  morn- 
ing, for  she  had  lain  awake  all  night,  looked  at  herself  in 
the  mirror,  expecting  to  see  her  eyes  sunken,  her  cheeks 
pale,  her  dark  hair  threaded  with  white ;  she  felt  so  old !  so 
old !  But  seeing  nothing  of  the  kind,  only  the  same  bright 
rosy  face  in  the  frame  of  luxuriant  dark  hair,  took  heart 
and  resolved  that  nothing  of  the  inner  tragedy  should  ever 
appear  in  her  behavior.  She  even  attempted  a  little 
comedy  by  trying  to  sing,  but  the  song  died  so  pitifully 
away  in  choking  tears  that  wished  to  have  their  way  with 
her  that  she  gave  it  up,  thinking  it  useless  to  pretend  to 
herself  that  life  was  just  the  same  as  it  had  been  yester- 
day morning.  She  really  had  not  cried  yet,  beyond  this 
stubborn  swelling  in  her  throat,  and  she  meant  not  to 
cry  outwardly  though  her  whole  soul  was  dissolved  in 
tears.  She  had  a  great  deal  of  pride,  our  Dolly,  and  like 
all  proud  women,  she  felt  humbled  to  the  dust  by  this  gift 
of  her  love  unasked,  unwanted. 

The  morning  was  gray  and  dull,  the  heavy  fog  of  the 
night  before  not  having  lifted,  blurred  the  near  landscape 
and  quite  obliterated  the  distant  one.  The  roses  at  her 
window  hung  their  heavy  heads  dripping  with  moisture. 
Dolly  was  grateful  for  this  grayness  and  dullness.  The 
sunshine  would  have  seemed  impertinent,  unsympathetic, 
intruding  upon  her  a  world  in  which  she  no  longer  had 
any  part. 

While  she  busied  herself  with  dressing,  she  planned  all 
sorts  of  ways  to  avoid  seeing  Dick  any  more,  without 


150  THE  TRELOARS 

seeming  to  avoid  him;  not  that  he  would  notice  it,  she 
said  bitterly  to  herself,  remembering  how  little  notice  he 
had  taken  of  her  the  night  before.  She  would  go  over 
to  the  Treloars  after  breakfast  and  borrow  Dick's  copies 
of  Ibsen's  plays.  She  would  force  herself  to  be  so 
deeply  interested  in  them  that  she  would  beg  to  stay  at 
home  next  Sunday  to  read  them,  instead  of  accompany- 
ing her  father  in  his  Sunday  afternoon  visit.  At  this 
point,  that  dreadful  lump  came  up  into  her  throat  again, 
but  she  swallowed  it  bravely  and  winked  her  eyes,  and 
said  fiercely  to  herself :  "  If  you  cry,  Dorothy  Parker, 
I'll  kill  you ! "  She  was  so  indignant  with  herself  that 
she  couldn't  even  say  Dolly. 

"Are  you  coming  down  to  breakfast,  Dolly?"  shouted 
her  father  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs. 

"  In  a  minute,  Daddy,  darling ! "  she  answered  in  the 
brightest  little  voice  that  ever  was.  "  It  is  such  a  lovely 
dark  morning  for  sleeping;  and  I've  been  lazy,  but  don't 
wait  for  me,  if  you  are  hungry." 

She  took  a  handkerchief  from  a  box  on  her  bureau  and 
quickly  wiped  her  eyes  with  it,  then  she  pinched  her 
cheeks  to  make  them  look  redder  than  they  were,  and 
hurried  downstairs,  entering  the  dining-room  with  the 
light,  quick  step  that  was  only  another  expression  of  her 
youth  and  health. 

"  You've  waited  for  me,"  she  said,  lifting  her  face  to 
her  father's  for  the  morning  kiss.  "  I'm  glad  you  did ; 
if  you  hadn't,  I  should  have  thought  you  didn't  love  me, 
and  then  I  should  have  been  obliged  to  run  away  from 
you  like  Nora.  Wasn't  she  charming,  Daddy  ?  " 

"  Charming !  Nonsense !  Paint  and  powder  and  pre- 
tense an  inch  thick !  She  can't  hold  a  candle  either  to  you 
or  Margaret." 

"  Why,  father !  "  exclaimed  Dolly,  leaning  back  in  her 
chair  with  a  genuine  expression  of  astonishment.  "  How 
can  you  be  so  unjust?  That  is  not  like  you  at  all." 

"  I  am  not  unjust.     I  am  only  stating  a  preference." 


THE  TRELOARS  151 

"  But  questions  of  appearance  aside,  didn't  you  think 
her  a  very  good  actress  ?  " 

"  O,  yes,  she's  pretty  fair.  But,  like  Margaret,  I  didn't 
at  all  care  for  the  play.  Nora  seems  artificial  to  me,  too. 
In  this  age  of  the  daily  paper,  how  can  any  intelligent 
woman  be  so  ignorant  of  the  law  that  she  does  not  know 
that  forgery  is  an  offense  against  it?  And  especially 
when  her  husband  is  a  banker ;  and  especially,  too,  when 
she  is  rather  more  than  ordinarily  intelligent.  She  has 
mastered  a  foreign  language;  she  has  translated  a  book, 
and,  most  wonderful  of  all,  she  can  keep  the  fact  a  secret. 
Dolly,  don't  you  think  that's  utterly  impossible  ?  " 

There  was  a  mocking  twinkle  in  his  eye  which  made 
Dolly  fear  that  he  was  not  going  to  talk  seriously  to  her, 
so  she  frowned  in  disapproval  at  this  time-worn  allusion 
to  feminine  garrulity,  and  said  hastily : 

"  But  you  see  she  couldn't  keep  it,  when  it  was  a  ques- 
tion of  vanity.  She  told  her  secret  to  Christine.  I 
thought  that  very  natural,  and  as  for  keeping  it  from  her 
husband,  she  had  a  purpose  in  that.  She  was  holding  it 
as  a  sort  of  reserve  power." 

"  Which  only  shows  how  little  a  so-called  intelligent 
woman  knows  human  nature.  Of  all  human  sentiments, 
perhaps  gratitude  is  the  frailest  and  most  uncertain.' 

"  I  don't  think  so,  father." 

"  Which  shows  that  you  are  no  wiser  than  Nora." 

"  Perhaps  I  am  not;  but  I  am  just  as  eager  to  learn  as 
she  was.  Nora  just  lived  in  a  play-world  of  pretty  illu- 
sions, and  when  they  burst  like  bubbles ,"  here  Dolly 

stopped.  That  queer,  choking  sensation  came  into  her 
throat  again. 

"  She  left  home  to  hunt  for  a  new  set  of  them,"  added 
her  father,  unconscious  of  Dolly's  emotion.  "  Ibsen 
ought  to  have  given  us  a  sequel  to  the  play.  The  real 
Nora  would  have  come  back  in  three  or  four  weeks  like 
runaway  boys  who  go  off  in  a  pet  and  come  back  very 
hungry  and  humble,  having  found  out  that  the  world  has 


152  THE  TRELOARS 

no  place  for  the  weak,  but  exacts  a  full  day's  labor  for  its 
pay." 

"  You  think  she  would  come  back  ?  I  think  she  would 
rather  die  than  go  "back." 

"  Doesn't  care  a  rap  for  the  children,  eh  ?  " 

"  I  had  forgotten  about  the  children." 

"  Margaret  thought  of  them,  first." 

"  Well,  Margaret  is  used  to  thinking  about  everybody 
but  herself.  I  am  afraid  I'm  not.  Father,  I  am  going  to 
read  Ibsen.  He  stirs  me  up." 

"  Well,  Dolly,  of  all  people  in  the  world,  I  should  say 
that  you  didn't  need  stirring  up  by  anybody.  Just  look 
at  your  face  in  the  glass,  now.  It  is  as  red  as  a  beet." 

"  Is  it  ?  Well,  the  room's  too  warm.  Hannah  has  put 
as  roaring  a  fire  in  the  grate  as  if  it  were  fall  or  winter, 
instead  of  summer  time.  Don't  you  feel  too  warm  ?  " 

"  Not  a  bit.  It  is  a  raw  foggy  morning.  The  fire  feels 
good  to  me." 

Dolly  rose  and  walked  towards  the  north  window, 
which  she  opened,  and  stood  before  it,  looking  out  into 
the  misty  morning  with  eyes  that  were  growing  misty,  too. 
O,  how  hard  it  was  to  play  a  part !  Presently,  she  turned 
to  her  father,  and  said : 

"  Just  as  soon  as  the  fog  clears  up  a  bit  I'm  going  over 
to  the  Treloars  to  get  Ibsen's  plays.  Do  you  want  to  go 
with  me  ?  " 

She  hoped  he  would  say  no;  she  wanted  to  go  alone, 
and  it  relieved  her,  when  he  said : 

"  No,  I  can't  go  this  morning,  but  if  you'll  wait  till  this 
afternoon,  I'll  go  with  you." 

"  But  I  can't  wait,  Daddy,  dear.  What  would  I  be  do- 
ing all  morning  long,  while  you  are  writing  your  letters? 
I'll  just  run  down  and  back.  I  won't  stay." 

With  that,  she  went  to  get  her  hat  and  cloak,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  she  was  hurrying  along  the  Tunnel  Road, 
feeling  the  physical  exercise  some  slight  relief  from  the 
weight  of  the  immense  unhappiness  which  was  her  bur- 
den. How  beautiful  the  valley  had  seemed  to  her  only 


THE  TRELOARS  153 

yesterday.  To-day,  it  shut  her  in  like  prison  walls.  She 
longed  to  leave  it  all  behind  her;  to  flee  to  other  lands 
that  had  no  painful  memories  for  her;  to  be  free  from 
this  obsession  that  was  yet  so  great  a  part  of  herself  that 
would  she  be  herself  without  it?  She  had  not  before 
fully  realized  how  much  her  thoughts  and  opinions  had 
been  colored  by  this  illusion ;  for  Dolly  was  one  to  whom 
life  is  love,  not  as  coarsely  interpreted  by  so  much  of  mod- 
ern fiction,  a  fierce  mad  hunger  of  the  flesh  that  turns  a 
human  being  into  a  vampire,  but  as  the  love  that  loses  it- 
self in  the  multiplication  of  self.  To  live  the  center  of  a 
lovely,  healthy,  happy,  little  family,  that  to  Dolly  was  the 
meaning  of  life  for  a  woman;  and  so  strong  was  this 
latent  maternal  love  in  her  that  she  never  saw  a  little 
child  without  feeling  a  warm  glow  of  affection  surge  all 
over  her.  She  spoke  to  every  child  in  her  walks  abroad, 
and  her  father  had  long  since  ceased  asking  her  if  she 
knew  the  child,  for  he  had  learned  that  she  knew  all  chil- 
dren, being  akin  to  them. 

As  she  approached  the  home  of  the  Treloars,  Dolly 
slackened  her  pace,  not  wishing  to  show  any  signs  of  per- 
turbation before  Margaret  and  her  father.  But  the  fire 
burned  as  brightly  in  her  cheeks  for  all  her  slackened 
pace,  and  catching  sight  of  Margaret  in  the  garden,  she 
ran  down  the  slope  from  the  road  and  was  quite  out  of 
breath  when  she  reached  her.  She  burst  out  laughing  as 
Margaret  turned  towards  her,  a  pair  of  large  shears  in  one 
hand,  and  a  basket  of  roses  in  the  other. 

"  I  haven't  run  all  the  way  from  home,  Margaret, 
but  I've  hurried.  You  know  that  I  haven't  learned  to 
wait  when  I  want  anything,  and  I  want  a  little  more 
Ibsen,  if  you  please.  What  lovely  roses !  No,  don't  give 
me  any,  Margaret.  We  have  them  at  home,  you  know. 
By  the  way,  father  asked  me  what  you  thought  about 
Ibsen  for  a  girl's  reading." 

"  Did  he  ?  I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  say  that 
I  never  read  him.  I've  glanced  over  some  of  the  plays, 
but  the  snatches  of  conversation  I  fell  upon  were  so 


154  THE  TRELOARS 

trivial  that  I  wasn't  induced  to  go  on.  Perhaps  the  Eng- 
lish translations  are  poor.  I  see  that  the  plays  Dick  has 
are  in  German.  You  read  German,  don't  you,  Dolly  ?  " 

"  Yes,  with  a  dictionary.  That  is,  I  don't  have  to  look 
up  so  many  words  that  it  makes  the  reading  tiresome." 

"  Well,  we'll  go  up  to  Dick's  room  and  get  the  books." 

"Where  is  Mr.  Treloar?" 

"  He  is  in  the  library,  still  reading  Bergson's  Creative 
Evolution.  Dick  sent  him  the  French  original  a  few  days 
ago.  You  must  tell  your  father  to  expect  an  unusually 
heavy  attack  next  Sunday." 

"  Yes,  I  will." 

Margaret  and  Dolly  went  into  the  house,  and  having 
put  her  roses  temporarily  into  a  basin  of  water,  Margaret 
took  Dolly  up  to  Dick's  room.  A  small  open  book-case 
stood  near  his  bed,  and  five  book  shelves  were  built  into 
the  northern  portion  of  the  western  wall.  A  large  bay 
window  took  up  a  great  part  of  the  remaining  wall,  and 
looked  out  through  a  gap  in  the  hills,  at  the  farther  end 
of  which  gleamed  the  broad  ocean.  Dolly  went  at  once 
to  the  window.  "  I  always  love  this  view.  I  wish  we 
had  a  glimpse  of  the  ocean  from  our  house.  We  have 
glorious  mountain  views,  but  nothing  like  this.  Does  it 
make  you  want  to  be  sailing  away,  away  into  new  lands, 
when  you  look  out  on  it?  " 

"  No,  I  am  satisfied  with  letting  my  fancy  sail  out  on  it, 
while  I  stay  right  here." 

"  Ah,  I  see !  "  Dolly's  voice  had  a  touch  of  pathos  in 
it.  "  That  is  because  you  are  one  of  the  persons  who 
make  a  great  difference  in  other  people's  lives,  and  you 
couldn't  be  spared  from  here.  But  I  —  what  difference 
do  I  make  to  anybody?  I  might  sail  away  and  never 
come  back,  and  nobody  would  miss  me." 

Margaret,  standing  beside  her,  looking  out  of  the  win- 
dow, put  her  arm  about  the  young  girl's  waist,  and  drew 
her  affectionately  towards  her,  saying  tenderly: 

"  Why,  Dolly  dear,  what  are  you  thinking  about  ?  I 
never  heard  you  talk  like  that  before.  I  am  sure  that 


THE  TRELOARS  155 

that  there  is  nobody  who  would  be  more  missed  than 
you  by  all  who  know  you.  I  was  just  thinking  of  you, 
when  you  came  this  morning." 

"  Were  you  really,  Margaret  ?  "  Dolly  looked  up  grate- 
fully, her  mouth  twitching  a  little. 

"  Yes,  I  was.  I  was  thinking  how  fresh  and  sweet 
and  unspoiled  you  are,  and " 

"  O,  no,  Margaret.  I  am  nothing  of  that !  nothing ! 
Nothing  at  all !  I  am  just  a  silly,  green  girl ;  I  want  to  be 
wiser,  like  Nora.  Where  is  this  Ibsen  ?  " 

She  turned  hastily  to  the  book-case,  running  her  eyes 
over  the  titles  of  the  books,  making  hasty  comments  as 
she  read. 

" Bo swell's  Johnson.  Dear  old  Dr.  Johnson!  How  I 
should  have  liked  making  his  twelve  cups  of  tea  for  him. 
I  have  always  envied  Mrs.  Thrale  and  Fanny  Burney  their 
knowing  him " 

"  Here's  Ibsen,  Dolly.  Dick  was  wrong.  It  wasn't 
in  the  little  book-case." 

Dolly  took  the  volumes  from  Margaret's  hand,  thank- 
ing her,  and  glanced  around  the  pretty  room  with  its 
gray  tinted  walls,  polished  floor  and  rugs,  its  bright  brass 
bedstead  with  its  snowy  counterpane  and  the  plain  oaken 
writing  desk  at  which  Dick  worked,  when  he  was  at 
home. 

"Pretty  room,  isn't  it?"  said  Margaret.  "I  wish 
Dick  could  do  his  work  here,  instead  of  in  the  city.  I 
miss  him  so  much." 

"  Yes,  you  must."  There  was  a  little  catch  in  Dolly's 
voice.  "  I  must  be  going  now,  Margaret.  I  promised 
father  I  should  be  back  to  lunch." 

"  What  did  you  do  that  for,  Dolly  ?  I  am  so  sorry. 
We  are  going  to  have  spaghetti  a  I'italienne,  father's 
favorite  dish.  I  think,  however,  that  he  would  find  any- 
thing good  to  which  you  tacked  a  I'italienne.  You  must 
say  good  morning  to  father,  before  you  go.  He  would 
feel  hurt,  if  you  went  away  without  seeing  him,  for  he 
is  really  very  fond  of  you,  as  we  all  are." 


156  THE  TRELOARS 

Descending  the  stairs  and  approaching  the  library, 
Margaret  called  out: 

"  Father,  here's  Dolly." 

Mr.  Treloar  appeared  in  the  hall,  his  spectacles  shoved 
up  over  his  forehead,  a  cheerful  expression  on  his  face. 

"  Hello !  little  girl !  "  he  said,  stretching  his  hand  out, 
cordially.  "What  are  you  going  away  for?  Where's 
your  father  ?  " 

"  He  couldn't  come  with  me  this  morning ;  he  is  busy 
writing  letters,  and  I  promised  to  go  back  to  lunch  with 
him." 

"  Promises  are  sometimes  better  broken  than  kept. 
Did  you  get  a  whiff  from  the  kitchen?  If  you  didn't  just 
try  it  and  see  if  you  can  resist  staying.  Give  your 
father  a  sample  of  the  practical  effects  of  his  philosophy 
of  self-interest." 

"  My  self-interest  doesn't  happen  to  be  gastronomical, 
just  now.  See  my  books  ?  I  want  to  get  at  them." 

Mr.  Treloar  took  one  of  the  volumes. 

"  Ibsen.  Yes,  he  was  a  stirrer  of  dry  bones  in  his 
day,  but  his  day  is  passing.  By  the  way,  I  haven't  heard 
anything  about  this  famous  actress,  you  all  heard  last 
night.  Margaret  is  so  cautiously  non-committal  that  I 
can't  get  anything  satisfactory  out  of  her.  Was  she 
any  good  ?  " 

"  O,  I  think  she  was  remarkably  good.  There  isn't 
any  question  about  that,  is  there,  Margaret  ?  " 

Appealed  to  so  directly,  Margaret  was  obliged  to  de- 
clare herself. 

"  Really,  I  have  been  so  few  times  to  the  theater  that  I 
am  not  much  of  a  judge;  but  I  am  like  Mr.  Partridge, 
and  identified  the  actress  with  her  part,  so  that  must 
be  a  proof  that  she  did  it  well.  But  I  don't  like  the 
part.  Nora  is  not  my  kind  of  woman." 

Treloar  laughed. 

"  No,  Margaret's  idea  of  a  woman  is  like  her  idea  of 
a  good  old  hen:  one  that  sits  patiently  on  her  eggs,  till 
she  hatches  them  out,  then  scratches  up  the  best  worms 


THE  TRELOARS  157 

for  them,  and  gathers  them  under  her  wings  at  night." 
Margaret  colored.     She  thought  her  father  unkind  to 

speak  in  this  light  way  of  a  woman's  devotion  to  her 

duties,  but  she  contented  herself  with  saying: 

"  It  would  be  a  poor  look-out  for  the  chickens,  if  she 

took  to  gadding  about  the  fields,  looking  after  herself 

alone." 

On  the  road  homeward,  Dolly's  mask  of  cheerfulness 
was  entirely  dropped ;  a  feeling  of  weariness  and  despair 
followed  the  tension  in  her  mind.  She  recognized  in 
Margaret's  reticence,  the  fears  which,  after  all,  she  had 
not  entirely  admitted  to  herself.  Dick  was  utterly  lost 
to  her,  that  was  clear;  and  how  could  she  go  on  living 
this  hideous  pretense  of  life? 

"  I  am  going  away.  I  am  going  to  do  something.  I 
shan't  live  here,  any  more,"  she  said  to  herself. 

She  opened  one  of  her  books,  mechanically,  at  a  page 
in  the  play,  The  Emperor  and  The  Galilean,  and  her  eyes 
fell  on  the  following  lines,  heavily  underscored  with  a 
blue  pencil. 

"Is  not  happiness  the  aim  of  all  the  teachers  of  wis- 
dom? and  what  is  happiness  but  being  in  harmony  with 
one's  self?  Does  the  eagle  demand  golden  feathers? 
Does  the  lion  wish  for  silver  claws?  Or  does  the  pome- 
granate long  to  have  fruits  of  sparkling  stones?  I  tell 
you  that  no  man  has  the  right  to  enjoy,  before  he  is  hard- 
ened enough  to  bear  the  lack  of  enjoyment.  Nay,  he 
dare  not  even  touch  joy  with  his  finger  tips,  until  he  is 
in  a  condition  to  tread  it  under  his  feet." 

Dolly  stopped  short  on  the  road,  and  it  was  as  if  a 
flash  of  light  had  suddenly  pierced  her  darkness.  Was 
intellectual  vision  higher  than  love,  or  was  it  only  a 
purer  form  of  love  that  could  do  without  love  for 
itself?  Were  the  emotions  to  be  subordinated  to  this 
bright  intelligence?  Did  feeling  lead  up  to  seeing,  that 
seeing  might  reign;  and  did  perfect  seeing  mean  a  trans- 
figured resignation  that  was  calmness  and  rapture  in 
one? 


158  THE  TRELOARS 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MEANWHILE,  the  young  man  whom  Dolly's  torturing 
imagination  was  picturing  as  oblivious  to  everybody  else 
in  the  rapture  of  his  new  love,  was  at  this  very  time 
perhaps  more  miserable  than  she.  Dick  had  just  had  his 
first  quarrel  with  Nita.  He  could  hardly  tell  how  it 
happened,  or  whether  it  had  been  his  fault  or  her  fault, 
or  whether  both  had  been  to  blame.  He  remembered 
nothing  distinctly  but  her  biting  retort  which  had  cut 
him  to  the  heart. 

"  What  am  I  to  you,  or  you  to  me,  that  you  presume 
to  dictate  to  me  what  I  should  or  should  not  do?  We 
have  been  good  friends  and  may  continue  to  be  so,  as 
long  as  you  accept  me  just  as  I  am  without  presuming 
to  make  me  over  according  to  your  puritanic  ideas.  If 
you  are  not  satisfied  with  that,  let  us  say  good-by  for 
good." 

At  this,  she  had  held  out  her  hand  and  he  had  refused 
to  take  it;  she  had  quickly  turned  her  back  on  him  and 
walked  away,  out  of  his  sight,  out  of  his  life,  leaving 
it  so  hideously  bare  that  it  was  unendurable.  That  had 
happened  Saturday  night  in  the  corridor  of  the  hotel 
where  she  lodged.  He  had  accompanied  her  home  from 
the  theater,  as  was  his  custom  of  late,  and  he  had  been 
remonstrating  with  her  about  a  proposed  production  of 
a  sensational  melodramatic  success  of  the  day  turning  on 
the  so-called  White  Slavery  question.  According  to  his 
opinion,  there  was  more  that  was  insidiously  provoca- 
tive in  it,  than  purifying.  He  hated  the  play  for  its 
cheap  rhetoric,  its  cheap  sentimentality,  and  its  no  less 
cheap  falsification  of  life,  on  the  pretense  of  being  true, 
and  its  open  pandering  to  prurient  curiosity  in  the  name 
of  an  expose  of  social  evil.  He  had  counted  so  surely 
on  her  good  taste,  of  which  he  had  repeated  proofs  that 
he  had  taken  no  pains  to  modify  his  expressions,  but 
had  blurted  out  his  disapproval  in  a  way  that  had  deeply 


THE  TRELOARS  159 

offended  her.  She  saw  nothing  in  his  objections,  but 
the  crude  harsh  judgment  of  a  narrow  puritanism  un- 
acquainted with  life,  and  she  had  said  to  him : 

"  You  belong  to  the  century  of  Cotton  Mather.  Your 
brain  is  filled  with  the  shavings  of  other  men's  minds. 
You've  never  touched  life  itself.  You've  only  seen  it 
through  the  medium  of  books.  Go  and  live,  before  you 
talk  to  me  of  life." 

"  What  did  she  mean  by  living  ?  " 

He  walked  rapidly  down  the  street  towards  his  lodging 
house,  and  reaching  it,  made  his  way  up  the  dimly  lighted, 
steep  and  narrow  stairway,  entirely  conscious,  for  the 
first  time  of  the  bareness  and  ugliness  of  his  surround- 
ings. A  sickly,  fetid  odor  of  mixed  foods  filled  the 
house,  penetrating  his  room  on  the  first  landing.  Enter- 
ing it,  he  threw  open  the  two  windows  looking  out  on 
the  back  yard.  The  stars  were  shining.  A  brisk  wind 
was  blowing,  and  he  could  hear  the  rustle  of  the  tattered 
leaves  of  a  stunted  banana  plant,  that  grew  beneath  his 
window.  All  his  senses,  to-night,  were  preternaturally 
acute,  and  when  he  turned  on  the  gas,  and  in  its  broad 
hissing  flare  saw  revealed  the  ugliness  of  the  room;  its 
smoke-blackened  ceiling ;  the  wall  paper  with  its  sprawling 
faded  red  roses,  a  sensation  of  physical  nausea  passed  over 
him.  How  rich  his  emotional  life  had  been  to  have  made 
this  hideousness  endurable!  Cressy  had  sent  him  here, 
to  know  life  from  his  point  of  view  —  that  is,  life  in  all 
its  sordid  under  current  at  home,  aping  to  the  street,  the 
smug  appearance  of  prosperity.  Well,  he  knew  that  life 
now,  to  his  heart's  content.  Was  it  worth  the  knowing? 
And  would  she,  the  woman  whom  he  had  been  idealizing, 
would  she  have  called  that  life?  A  bitter  despair  seized 
him.  He  sat  down  by  his  table  burying  his  hot  head  in 
his  cold  hands,  and  all  the  dreams  of  his  youth  passed  in 
review  before  him.  Why  should  she  mock  at  him  ?  Was 
it  because  her  own  life  could  not  match  his  own?  He 
had  said  to  her  that  the  past  was  living,  that  the  yester- 
days prolonged  themselves  into  to-day  and  to-morrow; 


160  THE  TRELOARS 

that  all  life  was  a  living  chain  with  no  broken,  or  perished 
links  in  it.  He  held  his  breath,  he  lifted  his  head.  A 
shuddering  hope  dawned  in  his  darkness.  He  could  for- 
give her!  The  great  tide  of  love  in  him  could  wash  her 
free  of  all  stain  to  him.  The  past  could  die!  The 
past  was  dead.  But  the  joy  of  this  decision  was  short- 
lived. He  recalled  what  Max  had  said  to  him  the  first 
night  that  he  had  met  her,  and  a  hideous  suspicion  darted 
into  his  mind.  A  past  that  was  dead  —  yes,  he  could 
forgive  and  forget  that;  but  suppose  that  it  still  lived? 
Could  he  forget  and  forgive  that,  and  preserve  his 
honor?  No,  that  was  impossible. 

He  must  see  Max  to-morrow.  He  must  probe  this 
question  to  the  bottom.  He  must  find  out  just  how  much 
Max  knew  about  this  woman  who  had  entered  so  deeply, 
so  fatally  into  his  heart  of  hearts.  He  must  either  make 
her  his  own,  or  cut  himself  wholly  loose  from  her.  He 
rose  from  the  table,  and  paced  up  and  down  the  room, 
like  some  caged  wild  creature  that  never  ceases  hoping 
to  find  some  way  of  escape.  The  night  wind  blew  sharply 
into  the  room;  the  gas  jet  fluttered  fitfully.  He  looked 
at  his  watch.  It  was  half-past  three,  but  it  was  useless 
to  go  to  bed.  He  could  not  sleep.  His  head  was  on  fire, 
and  the  veins  in  his  neck  were  throbbing  so  violently  that 
the  rush  of  blood  in  them  gave  him  a  strange  sense  of  full- 
ness in  his  ears.  His  feet  and  hands  were  icy  cold. 

That  morning,  he  saw  the  sun  rise,  a  round  red  ball  in 
the  soft  purplish  sky,  mounting  higher  and  higher  till 
the  bright  light  streamed  full  into  his  windows ;  then,  he 
left  the  house  to  get  himself  a  cup  of  coffee.  He  had 
not  seen  Max  for  two  or  three  weeks,  and  knowing  that 
he  must  make  allowance  for  a  longer  sleep  on  Sunday 
morning,  he  did  not  go  to  his  room  until  eleven  o'clock. 
He  found  Max  writing  at  a  table. 

"  Hello,  Dick !  "  he  said  heartily.  "  By  George !  that's 
queer.  I  was  just  commencing  a  note  to  you,  see  here," 
and  he  held  out  a  sheet  of  paper  on  which  was  written : 
Dear  Dick —  "  I  was  just  sending  you  an  invitation  to 


THE  TRELOARS  161 

be  present  at  a  banquet  I  am  going  to  give  next  Wednes- 
day night,  in  honor  of  the  breaking  of  the  Dawn.  You 
will  be  there,  won't  you?  It  will  be  a  good  chance  for 
you  to  test  the  mental  caliber  of  my  Bohemians.  Dick, 
you  would  be  surprised  if  you  knew  how  much  real  J 
ingenuity  and  mental  acuteness  go  to  waste  for  want  / 
of  a  little  common  sense.  We  have  had  the  beloved  vag- 
abond in  literature  as  a  gentle  idealist,  voluntarily  aban- 
doning the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  to  smoke  his  pipe  in 
peace,  lying  on  his  back  in  green  fields,  or  on  the  banks 
of  purling  streams;  but  we  haven't  yet  had  the  real 
vagabond  soured  on  his  luck,  down  at  the  heel,  and  out 
at  the  toe  from  too  vigorous  kicking  against  the  pricks. 
He  is  an  interesting  phenomenon  of  modern  civilization, 
and  I  am  going  to  give  him  a  voice,  or  rather  a  record 
of  it,  for  his  voice  is  a  natural  gift  from  heaven.  I 
started  out  thinking  I  was  about  the  only  courageous 
revolutionist  in  the  country,  but  it  is  swarming  with  them 
like  grass-hoppers  in  a  Kansas  corn-field.  I'll  tell  you 
what  conclusion  I've  come  to."  Max  hitched  his  chair 
closer  to  Dick's  in  a  burst  of  confidence  unusual  to  him. 
"  Modern  civilization  is  suffering  from  the  suppression  of 
youth.  We  are  fathered  and  mothered,  and  Sunday- 
schooled  and  public-schooled  and  state-ridden  and  shirt- 
collared,  until  every  individual  and  original  color  is 
washed  out  of  us,  and  we  are  reduced  to  the  state  of  a 
dirty  rag.  But  there  are  some  of  us  who  have  fast 
colors,  and  all  the  rubbing  and  scraping  and  washing, 
only  bring  the  colors  out  the  brighter,  as  a  colored  pebble 
put  into  the  water  comes  out  brighter  for  the  dipping." 

"  Well,  you  have  nothing  to  complain  of  in  that,  have 
you?  That's  what  discipline's  for,  isn't  it?  You  want 
your  colors  brought  out  and  made  the  brighter." 

"  Yes,  I  know,  but  we  are  the  exceptions,  we  fellows 
with  the  fast  colors,  and  it  is  the  other  fellow  we  are 
thinking  of  —  the  immense  waste  in  color  —  the  pitiful 
spirit  of  submission  instilled  into  them.  We  want  to 
destroy  the  prestige  of  law  and  order,  and  so  restore  the 


162  THE  TRELOARS 

youth  of  the  world.  We  want  to  make  the  words  good, 
bad,  decent,  and  indecent,  sacred  and  holy,  obsolete." 

"  There's  nothing  new  in  that,  Max ;  it  came  in  with 
Cain,  and  v/as  very  popular  in  Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 
As  for  the  suppression  of  youth,  I  think  we  are  suffering 
from  an  eruption  of  youth,  more  than  anything  else.  Get 
Ferrero's  Between  the  Two  Worlds.  There  are  jolly  good 
things  in  it.  He  speaks  somewhere  about  everybody's 
wanting  to  think  with  his  own  head,  nowadays,  even 
.  when  he  hasn't  any.  By  the  way,  are  you  going  to 
have  any  women  at  your  banquet  ?  Have  you  thought  of 
asking  Nita  Normand  ?  " 

"  No,  I  hadn't  thought  of  that.  I  wonder  if  she  would 
care  to  come.  She  is  the  only  woman  I  know  who  would 
feel  at  home  among  us." 

Dick  moved  uneasily  in  his  chair,  and  felt  himself 
getting  very  red.  The  fateful  question  was  burning  on 
his  lips,  and  yet  he  did  not  know  how  to  utter  it,  so 
he  asked: 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  " 

"By  what?" 

"  By  saying  that  she  would  be  at  home  among  you 
Bohemians  ?  " 

"  I  mean  just  what  I  said.  I  can't  say  it  any  plainer. 
I  mean  that  she  would  be  hospitable  and  receptive  to  any- 
thing original,  no  matter  how  bizarre  it  might  seem. 
She  would  not  be  afraid  of  losing  her  way,  if  she  got  into 
a  new  path." 

"  Have  you  seen  her  lately  ?  " 

"  No,  I  haven't  seen  her  for  a  long  time.  Say,  Dick, 
what  are  you  driving  at  ?  You  want  me  to  tell  you  all  I 
know  about  her,  don't  you  ?  " 

He  asked  the  question  rather  compassionately,  for  he 
saw  through  Dick,  as  if  he  had  been  a  transparent  veil; 
and  Dick  knowing  that  he  did,  said  with  impulsive 
gratitude : 

"  Yes,  I  do." 

And  so  Max  told  the  whole  story,  and  when  he  had 
finished  it,  Dick  looked  pale  and  said: 


THE  TRELOARS  163 

"This  husband  who  had  deserted  her? " 

"  To  be  frank  with  you,  Dick,  that  word  is  a  euphemism. 
They  weren't  married.  Dick ! " 

He  looked  at  Dick  with  a  sharp  glance,  and  was  silent 
a  moment. 

"  Do  you  remember  the  caution  I  gave  you,  the  first 
night  you  met  her  ?  It  holds  good  to-day.  Don't  you  tie 
yourself  up  to  any  woman,  least  of  all  to  Nita  Normand. 
She's  too  smart  for  you." 

"  What  are  you  always  talking  like  that  for?  I've  no 
intention  of  getting  married." 

"  Look  here,  Dick.  What's  the  use  in  lying  to  me  ? 
I  know  you  like  a  book.  You  are  too  maidenly  ingenu- 
ous to  be  a  success  at  subterfuge.  You  have  got  marry- 
ing written  all  over  you  in  capital  letters,  from  head  to 
foot.  I  don't  know  that  anything  will  do  you  any  good. 
You  might  take  a  course  in  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melan- 
choly. It's  the  finest  mental  tonic  I  know  of,  in  such 
a  case.  I've  tried  it.  Do  you  do  the  same  thing,  and 
God  be  with  you!  You'll  come  to  my  banquet,  of 
course?  " 

"  Yes,  I'll  be  there,"  said  Dick,  mopping  his  flushed 
face  with  his  handkerchief. 

"  On  second  thought,  I  won't  ask  Nita,  so  you  needn't 
expect  to  find  her  there.  She'd  be  the  only  woman; 
would  cut  too  brilliant  a  figure,  and  introduce  an  artificial 
tone  into  the  crowd;  for  no  man  is  exactly  the  same  in 
the  presence  of  a  beautiful  woman  that  he  is  when  he  is 
with  men,  and  I  want  my  guests  to  be  entirely  themselves. 
Well,  besides  lally-gagging,  what  have  you  been  doing 
with  yourself,  since  I  saw  you?" 

Dick  felt  horribly  uncomfortable ;  he  hated  the  way  in 
which  Max  was  talking  to  him;  but  all  wit,  sense,  and 
presence  of  mind  had  deserted  him.  He  was  passing 
through  the  terrible  isolation  of  an  unhappy  passion,  and 
nothing  existed  for  him  that  did  not  concern  it.  Max 
might  as  well  have  talked  to  the  wind  as  to  Dick,  for  all 
the  influence  he  had  upon  him.  The  only  thing  that  Dick 


164  THE  TRELOARS 

had  really  cared  for,  was  the  removal  of  the  hideous 
suspicion  of  a  liaison  between  Max  and  Nita.  He  knew, 
now,  that  nothing  of  the  kind  existed;  but  he  was  hardly 
less  unhappy  to  know  of  the  stain  upon  her  life.  There- 
fore, not  feeling  inclined  to  discuss  his  work  or  his  am- 
bitions, he  arose  from  his  chair  saying : 

"  O,  it's  just  the  same  old  story.  Wherever  I  turn  my 
head,  I  seem  to  run  it  into  a  dead  wall." 

Max  laughed. 

"  That's  good  for  your  head,  Dick.  We  all  leave  col- 
lege with  a  good  deal  of  cerebral  inflation  that  has  to  be 
removed,  before  we  are  fit  to  live  in  the  world.  Getting 
knocked  on  the  head  is  one  way  of  reducing  it.  God! 
what  a  fool's  paradise  to  live  in,  shut  in  behind  academic 
walls,  living  with  the  hosts  of  the  past  till  we  forget  the 
language  of  the  present!  You  are  not  going,  are  you? 
Stop,  I  want  to  show  you  some  of  the  page  proofs  of  the 
Dawn." 

Dick  was  in  such  a  fever  of  impatience  to  be  off, 
that  the  thought  of  being  forced  to  put  his  mind  on  some- 
thing entirely  foreign  to  his  interests,  actually  turned  him 
faint.  He  excused  himself  with  the  first  idea  that  came 
into  his  head.  He  took  out  his  watch,  saying : 

"  Excuse  me,  Max.  You  know  this  is  Sunday,  and  I 
ought  to  be  home;  I  couldn't  go  out  last  night,  and  I've 
just  time  to  catch  that  1 130  boat.  I'll  see  you  later. 
Good-by,  old  man !  " 

He  put  out  his  hand,  the  ghost  of  a  smile  flickered 
over  his  face,  and  he  was  gone.  Out  in  the  open  air, 
again,  he  expanded  his  lungs  with  a  deep  breath.  He 
started  for  the  ferry,  but  he  had  no  intention  of  going 
home.  How  could  he  meet  anybody  and  chat  and  smile 
indifferently  with  this  heavy  burden  on  his  heart!  Ar- 
rived at  the  other  side  of  the  bay,  he  took  the  first 
street  car  he  could  find  for  North  Berkeley ;  and  leaving 
it  at  the  terminus,  he  struck  out  for  a  solitary  ramble 
along  the  shore,  where  he  had  often  idly  wandered  in 
his  boyhood. 


THE  TRELOARS  165 

It  is  a  rugged  sinuous  shore  strewn  with  huge  gray  rocks 
among  which  clumps  of  hoary  live  oak  spread  their 
gnarled  and  twisted  branches.  Across  the  bay,  narrow- 
ing here,  until  it  seems  only  a  broad  river,  a  low  chain 
of  hills  culminates  in  the  majestic  dome  of  Mount  Tamal- 
pais,  clad  almost  to  its  summit  with  magnificent  forests 
of  ancient  pines.  The  unusual  clearness  of  the  summer 
atmosphere  brought  out  the  undulating  outline  of  the 
mountain  chain  against  the  blue  sky;  and,  if  Dick  had 
been  in  a  mood  to  yield  to  the  charm  of  his  surround- 
ings, he  would  have  felt  the  influence  of  their  quiet  and 
noble  strength.  But  the  tumult  of  his  thoughts  and 
feelings  made  him  indifferent  to  anything  but  the  wish 
for  solitude,  where,  undisturbed,  he  could  fight  out  this 
terrific  battle  with  himself.  He  threw  himself  on  the 
ground  near  a  huge  lichen-covered  rock,  facing  the  bay, 
and  gave  himself  up  to  a  searching  enquiry.  He  was  in 
no  humor  to  deceive  himself.  He  wished  to  stand  face 
to  face  with  his  real  self,  to  probe  the  depths  of  his  heart, 
in  order  to  see  in  what  direction  he  was  facing. 

The  afternoon  wore  away;  evening  came  on,  and  still 
he  sat  there,  motionless  as  the  stone  against  which  he 
leaned.  The  white  drenching  mist,  rolling  in  from  the 
bay,  aroused  him  at  last  from  his  intense  thought;  and 
he  rose  from  the  ground  feeling  dizzy  and  weak,  and 
aged  by  a  score  of  years, —  yet  clearly  conscious  of  the 
direction  in  which  duty  lay,  and  honor  pointed.  A  hard, 
long  path  it  was,  all  uphill,  strewn  with  sharp  stones,  and 
tangled  with  thorny  branches ;  and  he  must  brace  himself 
and  struggle  hard  for  every  step  in  advance.  Something 
fine  and  manly  within  his  soul  tingled  and  vibrated  at  the 
thought,  and  that  strange  spiritual  exaltation  which  al- 
ways accompanies  the  victory  of  conscience,  filled  him  with 
its  solemn  joy,  so  closely  bordering  pain  that  there  is  but 
one  expression  for  the  two  emotions  —  the  moistened 
eye  and  swelling  throat ! 

He  walked  on  rapidly,  in  order  to  catch  an  evening 
train  for  San  Francisco.  He  could  hardly  have  gone 


166  THE  TRELOARS 

home,  if  his  life  had  depended  on  it;  for  there  is  no 
isolation  like  that  of  a  mighty  passion,  be  it  of  grief,  or 
joy,  or  frenzied  love.  It  is  the  colossal  egotism  which 
effaces  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  were  it  as  common  as 
romancers  feign  that  it  is,  society  could  hardly  exist.  The 
great  lovers  are  as  rare  as  the  great  geniuses ;  there  go  to 
the  making  of  both  of  them,  that  subtle  gift  of  the  imagin- 
ation which  paints  with  colors  that  no  other  eye  can  see, 
and  that  peculiar  tremulous  susceptibility  which  shrinks  at 
a  touch,  like  the  leaves  of  a  sensitive  plant.  The  joy  of 
such  natures  is  the  joy  of  giving  themselves,  wholly,  un- 
compromisingly, and  of  feeling  themselves  no  longer  soli- 
tary as  one,  but  solitary  as  two,  "  the  world  forgetting  by 
the  world  forgot."  But  nature,  whose  interests  are  en- 
tirely general,  and  who  leaves  the  individual  as  such,  en- 
tirely out  of  her  calculation,  very  rarely  grants  so  peculiar 
a  privilege.  A  great  love  is  as  rarely  a  happy  one,  as  it 
is  rare  itself.  Human  nature  as  a  whole,  is  inclined  to 
be  polygamous  in  its  loves;  and,  desires  succeed  desires, 
with  such  bewildering  rapidity,  that  it  is  farcical  to  call 
them  love. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

IT  was  in  a  chastened,  humble,  yet  exalted  frame  of 
mind,  that  Dick  went  to  the  banquet  in  honor  of  the  rising 
Dawn.  It  was  not  exactly  the  mood  to  predispose  him 
favorably  to  what  he  was  to  see  and  hear. 

In  a  long,  narrow,  low-walled  room,  brilliantly  lighted, 
a  number  of  tables  had  been  joined  together  to  form  one 
long  banqueting-table,  at  which  some  twenty-five  or  thirty 
persons  could  be  comfortably  seated.  Huge  bouquets  of 
roses  and  smilax  ornamented  the  table,  and  over  the  door- 
way was  grouped  a  collection  of  the  flags  of  all  nations. 
Across  this  collection,  was  drawn  a  white  linen  band,  in- 
tended to  be  symbolic  of  the  negation  of  nationality  in 
universal  brotherhood.  It  was  not  so  easy  a  matter  to 


THE  TRELOARS  167 

abolish  the  evidences  of  nationality  from  the  faces  of 
the  guests.  Nature  had  stamped  them  with  her  inefface- 
able marks  of  racial  and  geographical  distribution.  There 
were  swarthy,  low-browed  faces  with  short  black  bristling 
hair.  There  were  gaunt,  hollow-eyed  faces  that  recalled 
the  lugubrious  countenance  of  Don  Quixote.  There  were 
round  bullet-headed,  blonde-bearded  men,  phlegmatic  in 
speech  and  gesture ;  and  there  were  quick,  spider-like, 
thin,  dark-eyed  darting  men,  never  quiet  for  a  moment, 
bursting  out  into  sharp  laughter,  showing  their  flashing 
teeth  under  their  scanty  bristling  moustaches,  and  always 
the  center  of  a  little  group,  leading  the  conversation,  or 
interrupting  it.  There  were  no  old  men  among  them, 
the  oldest  being  probably  not  more  than  thirty-five.  But 
there  was  one  common  characteristic  which  like  the  strip 
of  ^white  linen  across  the  flags,  held  them  together  as  a 
unit,  a  brotherhood ;  and  that  was  an  air  of  general  shab- 
biness.  There  were  no  dress  suits.  It  had  been  ex- 
pressly stated  that  there  would  reign  neither  formality 
nor  convention  in  this  reunion  of  men  who  were  to  mold 
the  thought  of  their  generation  into  a  new  formlessness. 
As  a  natural  consequence,  the  linen  was  frequently  far 
from  showing  spotlessness  and  precision;  and  in  one 
particular  case,  it  had  been  replaced  by  a  red  flannel  shirt 
with  an  open  rolling  collar.  There  were  few  trousers 
guilty  of  their  original  creases,  or  wanting  in  a  superfluous 
glossiness  in  the  rear,  convicting  their  owners  of  prefer- 
ring a  sedentary  life  to  a  pedestrian  one.  This  motley 
crew  gathered  in  a  warm  room,  exhaled  an  unpleasant 
odor,  testifying  another  rebellion  against  the  conventional- 
ities, in  the  form  of  a  revolt  against  soap  and  water. 

"  Don't  you  think  we  need  a  little  fresh  air  ? "  was 
Dick's  first  question  to  Max,  after  the  usual  greeting. 

"  Too  strong  a  scent  of  the  wild,  eh  ?  " 

"  Yes.  I  think  that's  it.  After  the  neutral  atmosphere 
outside,  it's  rather  aggressive,"  and  Dick  moved  towards 
a  window,  throwing  it  wide  open  with  an  unnecessary 
display  of  energy  which  drew  attention  to  himself,  as  he 


168  THE  TRELOARS 

perceived  on  turning  around.  He  perceived,  also,  or 
thought  he  did,  an  instinctive  hostility  in  the  glance  of  the 
restless  eyes  confronting  him,  and  he  repaid  it  with  a 
look  equally  hostile.  He  felt  antagonized  immediately, 
and  expected  an  acrid,  disagreeable  note  in  the  mentality 
of  these  men,  corresponding  to  that  which  affected  his 
physical  senses.  His  expectations  were  not  disappointed. 

After  the  general  lull  which  followed  the  seating  of  the 
guests  at  the  table,  Max  arose  and  made  a  short  speech 
of  welcome,  after  which,  he  reminded  them  of  the  cause 
that  had  brought  them  together,  namely  a  most  praise- 
worthy determination  among  the  living  to  shake  off  the 
yoke  of  the  dead, —  to  fight  for  liberty  in  the  truest  and 
largest  sense,  the  liberty  to  express  one's  individuality 
without  the  childish  admonition  that  because  nobody  else 
ever  expressed  that  peculiar  outlook  on  life,  from  that 
peculiar  standpoint,  nobody  had  any  right  to  do  it.  This 
is  virtually  the  meaning  of  standards  and  conventions. 
They  set  up  narrow  bounds  or  limits  to  human  thought, 
saying  to  the  aspiring  mind,  athirst  for  the  infinite :  — 
'  Thus  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther.'  Here  Max  grew 
very  eloquent  over  the  consequent  stunting  and  deforma- 
tion of  human  intellect,  comparing  it  to  the  deforma- 
tion of  the  Chinese  woman's  foot,  or  the  slanting  forehead 
of  the  Flat-head  Indians.  Away  with  the  bandages  and 
straps,  and  shackles  for  the  human  intellect!  He  con- 
cluded by  reminding  them  that  this  movement  for  larger 
individual  freedom  was  by  no  means  confined  to  this 
effort  on  the  western  coast;  but  had  its  origin  else- 
where; and  was  now  universal.  In  fact,  they  had  with 
them  to-night  a  representative  from  a  foreign  shore, 
who,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  feast,  would  read  to  them 
some  inspiring  passages  from  the  manifestoes  of  Italian 
artists  and  litterateurs. 

Then,  the  dinner  proceeded  in  a  silence  remarkable 
enough  to  prove  that  with  regard  to  gastronomic  con- 
ventionalities, there  was  not  one  dissenting  voice.  Even 
Dick,  who  had  been  eating  hardly  anything  for  the  past 


THE  TRELOARS  169 

few  days,  and  on  entering  the  room,  had  not  felt  his  ap- 
petite returning,  began,  now,  to  eat  with  hearty  enjoy- 
ment; and  with  an  increasing  sense  of  physical  comfort, 
felt  his  harshness  softening  towards  this  long  line  of 
hungry  faces,  intently  bent  over  their  plates.  "  Poor 
devils !  "  he  thought,  "  an  empty  belly  and  an  empty  purse 
make  more  rebels  than  an  intellectual  conviction."  Yet 
that  was  not  the  explanation  of  Max's  rebellion,  and  he 
began  to  feel  a  little  curious,  as  to  just  what  his  program 
was;  therefore,  combating  his  first  instinct  of  hostility, 
he  turned,  at  the  end  of  the  feast,  to  listen  attentively 
to  the  dark-skinned,  wiry,  little  Italian  who  rose  to  tell 
what  the  youth  of  his  country  were  thinking  and  doing. 
He  spoke  rapidly,  with  a  very  strong  foreign  accent, 
and  he  was  so  familiar  with  the  contents  of  the  paper 
which  he  held  in  his  hands  that  he  rarely  had  to  look 
at  it.  He  began  by  saying  that  he  had  recently  had 
the  honor  to  be  present  at  the  first  battles  of  this  por- 
tentous futuristic  movement,  and  from  the  vigorous  lungs 
of  Italian  youths  had  heard  the  first  raucous  cry  of  re- 
bellion against  academic  art  and  literature,  the  museums, 
the  reign  of  archeologists,  college  professors  and  dealers 
in  old  clothes  and  antiquities  in  general.  It  was  the  battle 
of  life  against  death.  It  was  the  cry  of  the  free  man 
who  shakes  off  his  chains  and  runs  his  race  with  un- 
fettered ankles.  He  had  seen  the  valiant  leader  of  these 
valiant  youths,  pelted  with  potatoes  and  rotten  fruit  in 
the  vast  crowded  Mercantile  Theater  of  Naples.  He  had 
seen  him  in  the  midst  of  this  dangerous  riot,  catch  an 
orange  that  was  thrown  at  him,  and  eat  it  with  a  coolness 
and  imperturbability  so  sublime,  that  it  paralyzed  the 
vast  crowd  with  admiration,  and  instantly  changed  its 
yells  and  hoots  of  derision  into  tumultuous  applause.  "  I 
take  this,"  he  continued,  "  as  a  happy  augury  of  our  suc- 
cess. We  scorn  as  unworthy  of  our  mighty  upheaval  of 
thought,  the  cheap  applause  which  belongs  to  mediocrity, 
recognized  by  mediocrity.  We  welcome  hisses,  hoots 
and  yells  of  scorn.  They  are  the  sign  that  the  arrows 


I 


170  THE  TRELOARS 

of  our  wit  draw  blood.  We  are  not  giving  tops  and 
marbles  to  children  to  play  with,  but  iron  and  steel  to 
men  to  work  with.  Literature  has,  too  long,  been  in  the 
hands  of  the  idle  and  the  feeble.  It  has  smiled  and 
capered  and  pirouetted  and  amouretted  its  way  into 
boudoirs  and  parlors.  It  is  impregnated  with  the  odor  of 
petticoats." 

"  Well,  God  knows  the  odor  of  trousers  isn't  any  im- 
provement on  it,"  muttered  Dick,  with  an  angry  scowl. 

"And  it  crawls  and  wallows,"  went  on  the  little  man 
in  a  high,  shrill  voice,  "  where  it  should  walk  with  up- 
right strides.  We  proclaim  the  emancipation  of  man 
from  the  dominion  of  petticoats.  Down  with  the  base 
tyranny  of  feminism!  the  romantic  gabbling  and  cooing 
in  the  moonlight!  It  is  the  disgrace  of  modern  litera- 
ture to-day  that  it  has  centered  its  interest  in  what  we 
have  in  common  with  the  beast,  and  has  ignored  that 
which  allies  us  to  the  gods !  " 

"  Good ! "  growled  Dick,  again,  "  only  the  word  gods 
is  an  anachronism." 

"  This  literature  of  neurasthenia  and  hysteria  has  been 
a  veritable  plague  to  our  race.  It  has  sapped  our  virility. 
It  has  clouded  our  intelligence ;  therefore,  in  the  language 
of  our  great  futuristic  leader  from  whom  I  shall  now 

F  quote  literally :  '  We  despise  woman  as  an  instrument  of 
pleasure!  We  despise  this  horrible  and  perplexing  pas- 
sion of  love  which  shackles  man,  preventing  him  from 
getting  out  of  himself,  doubling  his  power,  and  rising  su- 
perior to  himself  and  into  what  we  call  the  multiplied 
man.' 

"  Love,  lust,  and  the  family  have  made  cowards  of 
men  for  generation  after  generation.  We  welcome  any- 
thing that  will  break  the  power  of  woman.  For  that 
reason  we  welcome  the  suffragettes  as  our  best  collabora- 
tors ;  because  the  more  rights  and  political  powers  woman 
has,  the  less  time  she  has  to  preoccupy  herself  with  love 
and  to  make  herself  the  receptacle  of  sentimental  passion, 
and  the  machine  of  pleasure.  But  we  are  assured  that 


THE  TRELOARS  171 

a  government  composed  of  women,  or  sustained  by  them, 
will  fatally  direct  us  into  pacifism,  Tolstoyan  cowardice 
and  a  definitive  triumph  of  hypocrisy  and  the  priesthood. 
That  might  come  to  pass ;  but  it  would  be  followed  by  a 
war  of  the  sexes,  and  humorous  misogynists  possibly 
dream  of  a  Saint  Bartholomew  of  women. 

"  Let  it  come.  We  futurists  are  too  progressive  to  be 
bound  by  family  life.  We  love  nothing  but  the  heroic 
instinct.  We  who  desire  that  the  masterpiece  shall  be 
burned  with  the  corpse  of  its  author ;  —  we,  who  feel  hor- 
ror at  the  idea  of  working  for  immortality,  because  that 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  dream  of  intellectual 
usurists, —  we  shall  not  create  sons  of  flesh  and  blood. 
We  have  dreamed  of  creating,  some  day,  our  Mechanical 
Son  —  fruit  of  the  free  will,  synthesis  of  all  the  laws 
which  science  is  discovering.  Admitting  the  transform- 
ist  theory  of  Lamarck,  we  aspire  to  the  formation  of  an 
inhuman  type,  in  which  will  be  effaced  all  moral  pain, 
kindness,  tenderness,  and  love,  which  are  the  only  poison- 
ous corrosive  of  our  inexhaustible  vital  energy,  the  only 
destroyers  of  our  potent  physiological  electricity.  We  ad- 
mit the  possibility  of  an  incalculable  number  of  human 
transformations;  and  we  venture  to  declare  that  a  pair 
of  wings  slumbers  in  the  ribs  of  man.  The  day  on 
which  it  will  be  possible  for  man  to  exteriorize  his  will  in 
such  a  way  that  it  will  be  projected  outside  of  him,  like 
an  immense  invisible  arm, —  on  that  day,  dream  and  de- 
sire, which  are  vain  words,  at  present,  will  reign  su- 
premely over  space  and  time, —  for  space  and  time  will  be 
abolished. 

"  Romantic  love  will  be  reduced  to  a  simple  corporeal 
function  like  eating  or  drinking.  But  there  is  much  to 
be  done  before  our  masculine  contemporaries,  satiated 
with  erotic  novels  and  enervating  alcohol,  become  finally 
immune  to  the  infirmity  of  love,  and  capable  of  destroying 
in  themselves  all  the  griefs  of  the  heart,  and  the  dis- 
tractions of  the  affections.  Our  frank  misogynistic 
optimism  is  diametrically  opposed  to  the  pessimism  of  that 


172  THE  TRELOARS 

bitter  thinker  Schopenhauer  who  offered  the  suggestive 
pistol  of  his  philosophy  in  order  to  kill  in  ourselves  the 
profound  nausea  of  woman  and  love.  We  have  turned 
the  tragic  pistol  and  cheerfully  aimed  it  at  the  romantic 
moonlight.  We  have  said:  Down  with  all  consecrated 
conventionalities,  the  foci  of  dreams  and  cowardice !  We 
no  longer  love  anything  but  this  immense  movable  and 
passionate  scaffolding  which  we  can  consolidate  at  any 
moment  and  adjust  to  any  squalls  with  the  red  cement  of 
our  bodies,  forged  by  the  will. 

"  Let  the  worm-eaten  past  fear,  and  the  future  hope ! 
Trust  in  progress  which  is  always  right,  even  when  it  is 
unjust;  because  there  is  life,  movement,  struggle  and 
hope  in  it.  Take  care  not  to  criticise  progress !  Even 
when  it  is  an  impostor,  a  traitor,  an  assassin,  a  robber,  an 
incendiary, —  progress  is  right! 

"  Up  then  with  the  futuristic  banner !  Higher  yet,  to 
exalt  the  aggressive  and  destructive  will  of  man  and  to 
affirm  once  more  the  absurdity  of  the  nostalgic  memory 
of  myopic  history  and  the  rotting  past!  You  think  us 
too  brutal.  That  is  because  we  have  bathed  in  the  light 
of  a  new  sun,  resembling  in  no  way  the  sun  that  caressed 
the  placid  shoulders  of  our  ancestors  whose  slow  pace 
was  in  harmony  with  the  idle  hours  of  their  provincial 
cities  and  the  breadth  of  the  flag-stones  of  their  streets, 
blossoming  in  verdure  and  silence.  We  breathe  an  at- 
mosphere irrespirable  to  them.  We  have  no  time  to 
pray  before  tombs.  In  the  next  inevitable  conflict  of  na- 
tions, that  nation  will  conquer  which  has  most  completely 
forgotten  its  past,  which  is  most  futuristic,  most  scientific, 
most  industrious,  and,  consequently,  the  richest. 

"  The  victorious  science  of  our  day  denies  its  past,  that 
it  may  better  respond  to  the  intellectual  necessities  which 
disturb  us.  Our  renewed  consciousness  prevents  us  from 
regarding  man  as  the  center  of  universal  life.  Man's 
agony  is  no  more  interesting  to  us  than  the  agony  of  an 
electric  lamp  which  suffers  with  spasmodic  leaps,  and 
shrieks  with  the  boldest  expressions  of  color.  The  har- 


THE  TRELOARS  173 

mony  of  lines  and  folds  in  contemporary  dress,  exercises 
on  our  sensibilities  the  same  emotional  and  symbolic  in- 
fluence which  the  nude  exercised  on  the  sensibility  of  the 
ancients.  To  conceive  of,  and  to  understand  the  new 
beauties  of  a  futuristic  picture,  the  soul  must  be  purified, 
the  sight  freed  from  its  veil  of  atavism  and  of  culture,  and 
must  consider  nature,  and  not  the  museums,  as  the  aim 
of  its  orientation.  When  this  result  is  obtained  we  shall 
destroy  the  black  tints  which  have  never  slept  in  our  epi- 
dermis ;  we  shall  let  the  yellow  blaze  forth,  the  red  and  the 
green  shine  again,  the  blue  and  the  violet  shall  dance  on 
our  flesh  with  their  voluptuous  and  caressing  grace. 

"  Our  increasing  desire  for  truth  can  no  longer  be 
satisfied  with  form  and  color,  as  they  have  been  hitherto 
conceived.  The  appearance,  the  attitude  which  we  desire 
to  reproduce  upon  the  canvas,  will  not  be  a  fixed  instant 
of  universal  dynamism.  It  will  be  simply  a  dynamic  sen- 
sation. Everything,  in  reality,  is  changing ;  is  undergoing 
a  vertiginous  transformation.  A  profile  is  never  immov- 
able before  us;  it  ceaselessly  appears  and  disappears. 
Even  during  the  persistence  of  the  image  in  the  retina, 
moving  objects  are  successively  multiplied  and  deformed, 
like  the  recurring  vibrations  precipitated  in  space.  There- 
fore a  running  horse  has  twenty  legs,  not  four;  and  his 
movements  are  triangular.  Everything  in  art  is  conven- 
tional; nothing  in  painting  is  absolute.  What  yesterday 
was  truth  for  the  painter,  is  nothing  to-day,  but  an  enorm- 
ous lie.  For  example,  we  maintain  that  a  portrait  ought 
not  to  resemble  the  model;  and  that  the  painter  carries 
within  himself  the  landscape  which  he  wishes  to  fix  upon 
the  canvas.  To  paint  a  human  face,  all  that  is  necessary 
is  to  reproduce  its  environment.  Space  does  not  exist; 
and  who,  to-day,  believes  in  the  opacity  of  bodies  since  our 
acute  and  multiplied  sensibility  has  foreseen  the  obscure 
manifestations  of  spiritualism? 

"  All  the  feverish  life  of  our  day ;  the  shriek  of  the  lo- 
comotive; the  loud  clang  of  the  automobile  trump;  the 
crashing,  grinding  of  buildings  in  process  of  erection; 


174  THE  TRELOARS 

the  hissing  and  crackling  of  electric  currents,  will  find  a 
voice  for  the  first  time  in  the  music  of  the  future;  poetry 
will  leap  unshackled  from  the  chains  of  rhyme  and 
rhythm;  and  scorning  in  its  new  freedom  all  the  stupid 
conventionalities  of  sense  and  decency,  will  bare  its  naked 
limbs  in  free  verse.  Nothing  shall  be  sacred  to  it.  The 
graves  shall  open  as  it  passes,  and  the  sheeted  dead  shall 
squeak  and  gibber  and  fling  their  stench  into  the  morning 
breeze. 

"  The  education  of  the  young  shall  no  longer  be  en- 
trusted to  the  care  of  those  who  have  been  trained  in 
the  culture  of  the  past.  We  wish  our  sons  to  follow 
joyously  their  own  inclinations,  to  finish  once  for  all  with 
antiquities  —  to  scoff  at  all  that  time  has  consecrated! 
What  do  you  think,  for  example,  of  the  futuristic  project 
which  consists  in  introducing  into  all  schools  a  regular 
course  in  risks  and  dangers?  The  children  will  be  sub- 
jected, either  willingly  or  by  force,  to  the  necessity  of 
facing  at  all  times,  a  series  of  dangers  each  time  more 
and  more  frightful,  arranged  by  the  instructors,  but  al- 
ways unforeseen  to  the  children;  such  as  fire,  inunda- 
tion, the  falling  in  of  roofs  and  other  appalling  disasters ! 
Our  idea  appears  to  you  preposterous?  Know,  then, 
that,  fortunately,  we  are  very  numerous, —  we  who  be- 
lieve that  talent  and  virtue  abound,  and  that  valor  is 
scarce,  concealed,  almost  impossible  to  be  found " 

Scarcely  had  the  orator  finished  uttering  this  phrase, 
when  he  suddenly  felt  himself  seized  by  the  seat  of  his 
trousers  and  the  scruff  of  the  neck,  and  hurled  across 
the  table  with  a  violence  which  proved  that  the  futuristic 
education  might  be  a  very  serious  thing,  and  that  valor 
and  strength  had  been  neither  so  scarce  nor  so  concealed, 
as  the  orator  supposed,  but  had  been  quite  close  beside 
him,  in  the  person  of  Dick,  who  was  now  shouting  in  a 
towering  rage : 

"  It's  a  poor  doctor  that  won't  take  his  own  medicine ! 
How  do  you  like  your  futuristic  education?  Any  more 
of  you  that  would  like  to  take  a  lesson  in  it?  If  you  do, 
there's  my  card !  " 


THE  TRELOARS  175 

Dick  flung  his  card  on  the  table  and  looked  savagely 
at  the  surprised  and  scowling  faces  about  him.  He  was 
white  to  the  very  lips,  his  eyes  blazing,  and  every  muscle 
in  him  quivering  like  that  of  a  tiger  crouching  for  his 
prey.  He  felt  the  strength  of  a  hundred  men  in  his  lithe 
young  body,  and  looked  as  if  he  had  it.  Turning  to  Max, 
he  said : 

"As  for  you.  I  have  loved  you  as  if  you  were  my 
brother.  But  there  are  things  dearer  to  me  even  than 
the  ties  of  blood  and  friendship;  they  are  the  sane  and 
beautiful  instincts  which  bind  me  to  the  human  race  — 
and  that  puny  wretch  has  outraged  and  insulted  them  in 
borrowed  language,  and  I  should  be  the  white-livered 
coward  he  finds  everywhere,  if  I  could  listen  to  his  blas- 
phemous rot,  and  give  no  sign  of  protest  or  resentment ! 
So  I  don't  ask  your  pardon  for  what  I've  done.  I'd  do  it 
over  again  in  a  minute !  I  guess  my  room  is  better  than 
my  company.  Do  any  of  you  want  anything  more  of  me, 
before  I  go  ?  " 

As  no  one  uttered  a  word,  he  started  for  the  door,  tak- 
ing his  hat  from  the  rack  as  he  passed  it;  and  he 
turned  once  more  to  glare  at  the  astonished  crowd,  be- 
fore he  disappeared.  Never  in  his  life  had  he  felt  such 
a  tempest  of  anger  and  indignation  possess  him.  His  vi- 
olence was  not  only  an  expression  of  unfathomable  dis- 
gust, but  it  was  the  climax  of  all  the  unhappiness,  and 
repression  that  had  been  brooding  in  him  for  weeks ;  and 
once  more  in  the  open  air,  he  had  a  glorious  feeling  of  re- 
lief, as  he  hastened  to  catch  the  midnight  ferry  for  the 
other  side  of  the  bay.  At  last  he  could  go  home. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

"Is  that  you,  Dick?" 

The  voice  was  tremulous  and  eager.  Dick  had  entered 
the  house  as  quietly  as  possible,  knowing  that  Margaret's 
quick  ears  would  catch  the  slightest  sound ;  but  the  stairs 


176  THE  TRELOARS 

had  creaked  under  his  step,  although  he  had  taken  off  his 
shoes  to  mount  them,  and  there  she  stood  at  the  head  of 
the  stairs,  the  moonlight  streaming  over  her,  as  it  entered 
the  window  behind  her.  She  had  a  cape  thrown  over  her 
/  white  night-dress,  and  her  bare  feet  were  thrust  into  bed- 
room slippers.  She  had  heard  him  open  the  door.  In 
a  moment  her  arms  were  about  his  neck,  and  she  was 
softly  crying  with  joy,  as  she  said: 

"  Dear,  dear  Dick.  I  knew  you  were  coming.  I  had 
such  a  strange  restless  feeling  about  you.  I  couldn't 
sleep.  I  kept  saying  to  myself :  '  Come,  Dick !  O,  come, 
come  to  me! '  And  here  you  are.  It  is  wonderful !  " 

"  Hush,  Margaret !  "  whispered  Dick,  "  you'll  wake  the 
others." 

"  I  think  there's  no  danger.  Nobody  else  has  been 
worrying  about  you.  Come  into  your  room,  and  let  me 
turn  on  the  light  to  have  a  good  look  at  you.  It  seems 
ages  and  ages,  since  I  saw  you." 

She  preceded  him  into  his  room  and  flooded  it  with 
light. 

"  Why,  Dick,  what  have  you  been  doing  with  yourself  ? 
You  look  so  haggard!  There  are  great  black  circles 
under  your  eyes." 

"  Are  there  ?  Well,  come  here,  and  see  if  you  can't 
match  them." 

He  led  her  to  the  mirror,  and  though  her  face  was 
flushed  with  joy,  and  her  eyes  were  shining  brightly, 
there  were  dark  rings  under  them,  telling  of  anxious 
thoughts  and  sleepless  nights. 

"  What  have  you  been  doing,  Margaret  ?  " 

Margaret  turned  away  from  her  image  in  the  glass,  and 
nestling  her  head  on  Dick's  shoulder,  she  whispered 
earnestly : 

"  Dick,  it  is  that  other  woman  that  is  doing  it." 

"Margaret!" 

"  I  can't  help  it,  Dick.  I  have  been  suffering  agonies 
on  account  of  her." 

She  felt  his  heart  quicken  its  beats,  as  she  spoke.     He 


THE  TRELOARS  177 

did  not  try  to  deceive  her  by  feigning  amazement,  or  ask- 
ing what  woman.  They  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the  bed 
near  each  other,  and  taking  her  hand  in  his  and  caressing 
it,  he  said  very  quietly: 

"  Margaret,  I  was  a  fool !  I  took  a  bit  of  bright  tinsel 
for  gold ;  but  I  see,  now,  what  it  was.  You  need  fear  for 
me  no  more.  I  am  through  with  it  all.  I  promise  you 
faithfully." 

She  put  her  arms  about  his  neck;  she  kissed  him 
fervently. 

"  O  Dick,  you  don't  know  how  happy  you  make  me ! 
See,  it  is  all  gone  now  —  all  the  worry  and  grief ;  and 
we'll  never  speak  of  it  again!  It's  all  forgotten!  O,  I 
am  so  glad!  so  glad!" 

"  Did  you  get  the  letter  I  sent  you  ?  " 

"  Yes.  You  said  you  were  going  to  Max's  banquet. 
Didn't  you  go  ?  " 

Dick  burst  out  laughing,  and  it  was  Margaret's  turn 
to  remind  him  that  he  might  wake  the  sleepers. 

"  I  have  just  come  from  there,  and  what  do  you  think  I 
did,  as  guest  of  honor?  " 

"  I  have  no  idea ;  but  I  know  it  wasn't  anything  to  be 
ashamed  of." 

"  No,  it  wasn't.  I  just  caught  hold  of  the  chief  speaker 
by  the  seat  of  his  breeches  and  his  coat  collar,  and  I 
hurled  him  over  the  table,  as  if  he  had  been  a  little 
poodle  dog." 

"  Dick,  you  are  joking!  " 

"  No,  I  am  not.     Upon  my  honor !  " 

"Why,  Richard  Treloar!" 

"  I  know  it.  Incomprehensible,  isn't  it  ?  I'll  tell  you 
how  it  happened.  The  chief  speaker  was  a  little  Italian 
runt,  chock-full  of  some  futuristic  manifestoes  which  he 
was  grinding  out  like  a  sausage  mill,  and  when  he  came 
to  the  point  where  he  was  telling  how  the  young  are  to 
be  trained  to  meet  all  sorts  of  disasters,  floods,  fires,  col- 
lapses of  buildings,  etc.,  I  couldn't  for  the  life  of  me  help 
giving  him  a  taste  of  an  unexpected  disaster.  I  don't 


1/8  THE  TRELOARS 

know  how  he  liked  it.  He  got  a  fine  bloody  nose,  and  a 
welt  on  his  forehead,  but  there  wasn't  a  peep  out  of  him 
or  anybody  else  when  I  left;  although  I  offered  to  lick 
the  whole  bunch." 

"Dick!" 

Margaret  was  almost  speechless  with  astonishment. 

"  Don't  you  think  I  did  right  ?  You  should  have  heard 
how  he  despised  women  and  their  cowardly  affections, 
and  hated  the  family,  and  thought  the  hope  of  the  world 
was  in  war,  and  would  blot  out  all  memory  of  the  past, 
burn  down  colleges,  libraries,  museums,  art  galleries ;  and 
people  the  world  with  machine-men  with  steel  wings 
growing  out  of  their  ribs!  Do  you  think  I  was  going 
to  sit  there  and  listen  to  all  that  idiotic  drivel  and  not 
enter  a  protest?  I  am  not  a  knocker  on  general  princi- 
ples, and  you  know  it ;  but  when  I  see  a  low-browed  wretch 
sneak  up  with  a  torch  to  burn  down  my  house,  I  am  go- 
ing to  knock  him  down,  if  I  can :  and  when  I  hear  him  re- 
vile my  sister  and  vomit  the  infamy  of  his  black  heart  on 
the  memory  of  my  mother  —  I  am  going  to  kick  him 
into  kingdom  come,  if  I  can.  Now  you  see  what  a  nice 
little  brother  Dick  you  have !  " 

Dick  rammed  his  hands  into  the  pockets  of  his  trousers 
and  looked  at  Margaret  with  a  curious  smile.  His  face 
was  flushed,  his  eyes  glistening,  his  dark  hair  was  falling 
in  disorder  about  his  forehead;  and  there  was  something 
so  forceful  and  defiant  in  his  bearing  that  Margaret  felt 
herself  in  the  presence  of  some  new  trait  in  her  brother's 
character  that  half-frightened  her,  so  she  said  sooth- 
ingly : 

"  Don't  take  it  so  seriously,  Dick.  These  people  are  just 
like  silly,  forward  children  bent  upon  attracting  attention 
to  themselves ;  and  the  more  attention  you  give  them, 
even  in  reprimanding  them,  the  better  they  like  it.  The 
only  thing  which  they  can't  stand  at  all,  is  to  be  absolutely 
ignored.  That  is  how  I  should  treat  them;  pay  abso- 
lutely no  attention  to  them.  They'll  get  tired  of  posing 
their  impotence  and  ignorance  before  each  other.  The 
audience  isn't  important  enough  to  flatter  them." 


THE  TRELOARS  179 

"That's  your  idea,  is  it?  but  suppose  other  people 
aren't  of  your  opinion?  Suppose  that  there  are  millions 
of  people  incapable  of  an  original  thought  who  are  led 
like  sheep  by  the  tinkling  of  a  bell?  Suppose  you  can't 
insult  this  intelligence  with  drivel  and  indecency,  be- 
cause they  haven't  any  intelligence  to  insult?  and  sup- 
pose that  instead  of  intelligence  they've  just  got  vanity 
enough  to  wish  to  be  at  the  head  of  the  procession;  how 
are  you  going  to  keep  them  from  thinking  that  noise  is 
thought,  and  nastiness,  wit;  and  that  where  the  noise 
and  the  nastiness  are,  there's  the  head  of  the  procession? 
You'll  have  to  set  up  some  kind  of  a  counter  noise  to 
keep  them  from  going  to  the  devil.  They  really  don't 
want  to  go  there ;  they  want  to  go  to  the  fat  land,  where 
the  grass  grows  green  and  high,  and  all  they  need  is  an 
honest  shepherd.  Now  are  you  going  to  be  an  honest 
shepherd,  or  are  you  just  going  to  turn  your  back  on  'em 
and  laugh  in  your  sleeve?  Are  you  afraid  of  being 
laughed  at,  yourself,  if  you  don't  do  that?  I'd  rather 
be  true  to  the  little  wit  God  gave  me,  and  be  counted 
witless,  than  be  called  wise  for  praising  a  new  folly 
which  imbeciles  and  unscrupulous  men  were  making  the 
fashion.  So  I  don't  agree  with  you  in  turning  my  back 
on  your  forward  children.  I'd  rather  plant  my  foot  in 
their  rear,  which  is  a  good  deal  solider  and  more  sensi- 
tive than  their  heads.  Probably  that  is  the  reason  why 
they  prefer  to  exhibit  it.  More  in  it." 

As  Margaret  couldn't  find  anything  to  say  to  this,  she 
rose  and  bade  Dick  good-night,  telling  him  that  he  must 
lie  as  long  as  he  liked  in  the  morning,  as  he  must  be  very 
tired. 

To  Margaret,  all  this  futuristic  gibberish  was  not  even 
a  mote  to  trouble  her  mind's  eye;  and  if  it  troubled  Dick 
enough  to  give  his  mind  a  new  activity,  and  drive  out 
of  it  the  obsession  of  a  fatal  passion,  it  must  be  confessed, 
that  down  in  her  heart  of  hearts,  not  believing  that  any 
one  could  possibly  take  it  seriously,  Margaret  would  have 
pronounced  it  a  good  thing.  She  had  no  inkling  of  the 


i8o  THE  TRELOARS 

latent  widespread  intellectual  disorder  of  which  it  was 
the  outward  sign.  She  had  that  dangerous  weakness  of 
the  pure  in  heart  to  see  all  things  pure,  from  sheer  in- 
capacity to  conceive  of  the  depths  of  wickedness.  Her 
vision  of  evil  had  the  narrow  range  of  a  brooding  bird. 
It  extended  little  beyond  the  nest,  but  there  it  had  the 
infallible  keenness  of  instinct,  and  if  it  were  well  with 
the  nestlings,  the  world  was  safe. 

Dick  took  advantage  of  Margaret's  indulgence,  and 
did  not  go  down  to  breakfast  until  half-past  ten,  at  which 
hour,  Dr.  Parker,  having  dropped  in  on  the  way  to 
town,  had  the  pleasure  of  listening  to  a  lively  account  of 
Dick's  experience  at  the  banquet.  He  joined  Treloar  in 
a  hearty  laugh. 

"  By  George !  I  wish  I  had  been  there !  "  roared  Treloar, 
falling  back  in  his  chair,  and  lifting  his  feet  from  the 
floor  in  an  expression  of  huge  delight. 

"  But  what  an  innocent  you  are,  Dick,  if  you  can't 
look  a  bit  of  perversity  in  the  face  without  going  all  to 
pieces!  You  can't  upset  the  universe,  as  you  upset  the 
little  Italian.  Your  sample  lesson  was  futile.  There  is  a 
cause  for  every  phenomenon,  and  until  you  have  dis- 
covered it,  there  is  no  use  in  applying  a  remedy." 

"That's  true,"  said  Parker,  "but  the  trouble  is  that 
you  reformers  are  not  going  to  agree  as  to  causes.  You, 
for  example,  are  going  to  lay  it  all  to  materialism  and 
the  spread  of  scientific  theories." 

"Of  course  I  am,  because  that  is  just  exactly  where 
the  cause  does  lie.  Just  as  soon  as  you  reverse  the 
relative  importance  of  mind  and  matter,  making  the 
greater  proceed  from  the  less,  instead  of  the  less  from 
the  greater,  you  are  going  to  end  in  a  triumph  of  brute 
force  and  brutish  dullness  over  refinement  and  intelli- 
gence. Even  your  Spencer  saw  it  coming  years  ago,  only 
he  hadn't  the  wit  to  realize  that  he  and  Darwin  and 
Huxley  had  contributed  to  bringing  it  about.  In  one 
of  his  articles  entitled  Re-barb  arization,  he  comments  on 
the  growing  love  of  barbaric  display  revived  in  civil  and 


THE  TRELOARS  181 

clerical  ceremonies ;  the  increasing  attention  given  to  ath- 
letics; the  reappearance  of  brutal  sports,  forbidden  by 
law;  the  growth  of  a  militant  spirit  conspicuous  even  in 
so-called  religious  movements,  like  that  of  the  Salvation 
Army,  with  its  official  gazette  entitled  the  War  Cry,  and 
its  motto,  Blood  and  Fire!  You  can't  deny  the  facts !  " 

"Of  course  not.  I  don't  deny  them.  I  only  deny  that 
a  coincidence  is  a  cause.  I  deny,  too,  that  scientific  the- 
ories are  any  more  justly  to  be  blamed  for  the  present  de- 
cline in  moral  and  aesthetic  values,  than  the  teachings  of 
Christ  are  to  be  blamed  for  the  horrors  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion, and  the  Saint  Bartholomew  massacre.  In  both  cases 
wrong  and  ignorant  interpretations  of  teachings  and  doc- 
trines are  to  be  blamed  for  the  errors  and  cruelty  that 
followed  the  spread  of  them.  Take  for  example,  the  ex- 
aggerated ideas  of  the  importance  of  personal  liberty, 
everywhere  prevalent  to-day  leading  to  anarchy  and  ultra- 
individualism.  There  is  absolutely  no  authority  for  this 
in  the  teachings  of  science.  If  science  emphasizes 
one  thing  more  than  another,  it  is  the  fact  that  law,  not 
liberty,  reigns  everywhere.  In  a  like  manner,  Christ's 
religion  of  love  would  make  war  and  injustice  impossible, 
if  it  were  really  accepted.  As  for  the  truth  of  your  as- 
sertion that  it  makes  a  great  difference  in  a  man's  moral 
outlook,  whether  he  believes  that  the  great  precedes  from 
the  little,  or  vice  versa,  I  am  not  so  sure;  but  1  am 
as  reasonably  sure  as  I  can  be  of  anything,  that  all  our 
experience  confirms  us  in  the  belief  that  there  is  a  steady 
upward  development  from  the  simple  to  the  complex, — 
from  the  egg  to  the  bird,  and  the  acorn  to  the  oak." 

"  No  definite  eternal  force  back  of  the  urge  to  life  ? 
No  difference  in  the  attitude  of  him  who  feels  that  the 
chain  of  intelligence  culminates  in  man,  and  that  of 
him  who  believes  that  it  has  its  beginning  and  its 
end  in  an  eternal  omniscience  which  he  calls  God? 
No  difference  between  him  who  believes  in  nothing 
greater  than  himself,  and  that  he  is  the  product  of  blind 
aimless  forces,  therefore  not  responsible  to  any  higher 


182  THE  TRELOARS 

being  for  his  actions  —  in  fact,  incapable  of  being  held 
responsible  for  anything?  You  can't  deny,  Joe,  that  sci- 
ence has  become  a  cloak  for  all  the  indecencies." 

"  But  I  protest  that  that  is  not  science,  and  that  you 
can't  justly  make  it  responsible  for  the  harm  done  in  its 
name." 

"  But  it's  done !  and  how  are  you  going  to  help  your- 
self ?  I  say  that  it  kills  the  imagination,  and  it  does.  I 
don't  know  any  more  terrible  example  in  literature  of 
the  stunting  effects  of  scientific  studies  than  the  example 
of  Zola.  Zola  had  naturally  an  extraordinarily  good 
mind,  and  he  meant  in  his  youth  to  use  it  in  the  service 
of  whatever  was  good  and  ennobling.  Later,  the  great 
temptation  came  to  him  that  comes  to  every  man  — 
typified  gloriously  by  Christ's  temptation  in  the  wilder- 
ness—  the  power  and  the  glory  of  the  world  for  the 
worship  of  Satan  —  Zola  abandoned  the  dream  of  his 
youth;  —  he  accepted  the  glory  of  the  world.  Did  you 
ever  read  his  youthful  correspondence  ?  There  are  some 
really  fine  things  in  it.  Dick,  hand  me  that  volume  of 
Zola's,  if  you  please.  No,  not  there,  third  shelf  to  the 
right.  That's  it.  Thank  you.  Now  listen  to  this.  He 
is  writing  to  Bailie  under  date  of  August  10,  1860.  He 
is  twenty  years  old.  I  shan't  translate  the  whole  letter. 
It  is  rather  long.  This  is  the  gist  of  what  he  says,  up 
to  the  passage  I  am  going  to  read  to  you.  He  says  that 
the  poet  has  two  instruments  with  which  to  reform  man  — 
for  he  believes  at  this  time  that  poetry  has  a  mission, 
namely,  the  elevation  of  man.  One  of  these  instruments 
is  satire,  the  other  is  the  hymn :  —  Satan's  burst  of  laugh- 
ter, and  God's  smile.  One  method  bares  the  perversi- 
ties of  man  to  put  him  to  the  blush,  combating  vice  by 
shame.  The  other,  depicts  the  ideal  man  to  arouse  ad- 
miration and  a  desire  to  be  like  him.  On  one  side  — 
you  have  a  stirring  up  of  filth,  and  exhalation  of  all 
its  miasmatic  vapors:  on  the  other  side  you  have  the 
heavens  opened  up  to  show  them  full  of  sweetness  and 
light.  Here  is  a  good  sentence  on  the  effect  of  the  two 


THE  TRELOARS       ,  183 

methods  on  the  poet  himself.  '  When  you  stir  up  filth, 
you  soil  your  fingers ;  when  you  linger  in  the  fields  in  early 
morning,  you  come  home  with  the  fragrance  of  the  dew 
and  the  flowers  about  you.'  " 

"  Does  Zola  say  that,  father  ?  " 

"  Yes,  Dick,  Zola,  before  the  light  of  scientific  studies, 
has  led  him  astray,  which  light,  as  you  will  see  later,  is 
a  woeful  darkness." 

Treloar  held  his  book  out  to  Dick,  pointing  to  the  sen- 
tence he  had  just  translated,  then  turning  the  page,  and 
finding  a  paragraph  which  he  had  underscored,  he  read: 

" '  Reading  Lamartine  is  much  more  fertile  in  virtues 
for  me  than  reading  Juvenal.  The  former  with  a  flash 
of  his  wings  carries  you  to  the  throne  of  God ;  the  latter 
like  Dante  makes  you  pass  through  hell  with  him. 
After  that,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  tell  you  that  I 
have  chosen  the  hymn.'  " 

An  ironical  smile  played  about  Treloar's  mouth,  as  he 
read,  and  he  looked  up  at  Parker  with  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye. 

'  To  sharpen  my  pen,  in  order  to  blacken  man  de- 
signedly; to  take  from  him  his  rare  qualities,  and  bring 
out  in  relief  his  numerous  defects,  is  repugnant  to  me. 
I  have  only  too  frequently  told  you  that  society  is  cer- 
tainly not  what  it  ought  to  be;  but  since  there  are  two' 
ways  of  leading  it  back  to  the  good,  let  us  use  the  most 
effectual  and  the  most  harmless  one.  There  are  still 
higher  considerations  which  induce  me  to  prefer  the 
hymn.  They  have  their  origin  in  my  conception  of  the 
modern  poet.  Let  us  not  be  deceived.  The  artist  is  a 
soldier.  He  is  fighting  in  the  name  of  God  for  all  that  is 
great.  He  is  not  a  vain,  useless  creature  drifting  with 
his  fancy,  singing  merely  to  sing,  wholly  indifferent  to 
the  echoes  which  his  lyre  awakens.  In  our  century,  in  this 
materialistic  age,  when  commercial  interests  absorb  every 
one,  when  science,  so  wonderful  and  so  skilful,  is  filling 
man  with  pride  in  his  achievements,  and  leading  him  to 
forget  the  supreme  Savant,  the  poet  has  a  sacred  mission. 


184  THE  TRELOARS 

His  duty,  always  and  everywhere,  is  to  show  the  soul  to 
those  who  think  only  of  the  body,  and  God  to  those 
whose  faith  has  been  destroyed  by  science.  Art  is  noth- 
ing else  but  that.  It  is  a  splendid  torch  illuminating  the 
path  of  humanity,  and  not  a  miserable  tallow-candle  in 
the  dog-hole  of  a  rhymster.  The  question  is  not  simply 
one  of  making  beautiful  verses;  these  verses  must  be  a 
sublime  lesson  in  virtue.  In  both  cases,  the  poet  may  be 
a  great  artist,  but  when  he  uses  his  gift  as  a  torch,  he  is 
a  disciple,  an  apostle  of  divinity;  when  he  uses  it  badly, 
he  quenches  the  sacred  fire,  the  gift  of  God.  For  what 
is  art,  if  it  is  not  perfection,  divine  sublimity,  divinity 
itself  ?  God  and  poetry  are  synonymous  for  me.'  What 
do  you  think  of  that,  Joe  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  that  the  real  Zola  is  the  muckraker  —  the 
aspiring,  poetic  youthful  Zola  is  an  unconscious  imitator 
of  classic  traditions.  He  had  probably  been  reading 
George  Sand's  preface  to  La  Mare  au  Diable,  and  repro- 
duced her  idea  of  the  mission  of  art,  which  is  identical 
with  what  he  has  been  saying." 

"  I  dare  say,  for  he  speaks  approvingly  of  it  some- 
where; but  what  reduced  him  to  the  lower  level?  You 
don't  want  to  answer  that,  I  see ;  so,  I'll  tell  you.  It  was 
the  study  of  science.  Six  years  later,  he  has  not  only 
abandoned  his  youthful  ideals,  but  repudiates  them  with 
hatred  in  a  series  of  essays  entitled  Mes  Haincs." 

Treloar  rose,  and,  going  to  his  book  shelves,  took  down 
the  volume  in  question,  and  turning  to  the  review  of 
Goncourt's  Germinie  Lacerteux,  he  read : 

" '  I  must  declare  from  the  start  that  all  my  being,  my 
senses,  my  intelligence  lead  me  to  admire  the  feverish 
and  exaggerated  work  which  I  am  going  to  analyze.  I 
find  in  it  the  defects  and  qualities  which  move  me  in- 
tensely, namely:  —  an  indomitable  energy;  a  sovereign 
contempt  for  fools  and  cowards;  a  large  and  superb  au- 
dacity; extreme  vigor  of  color  and  thought;  artistic 
solicitude,  and  conscientious  effort,  rare  in  these  days  of 
hasty  and  bad  workmanship.  My  taste,  if  you  like,  is 


THE  TRELOARS  185 

depraved.  I  love  strongly  spiced  literary  stews  —  the 
works  of  decadence  in  which  a  sort  of  sickly  sensibility 
replaces  the  vigorous  health  of  classic  epochs.  I  am  of 
my  age.  I  like  to  consider  a  work  of  art  as  an  isolated 
fact;  I  study  it  as  I  would  a  curious  case  which  has  just 
manifested  itself  in  human  intelligence.  A  work  of  art 
is  simply  a  free  and  high  manifestation  of  a  personality, 
and  I  have  no  other  task  than  to  affirm  that  personality. 
What  does  the  crowd  matter?  I  have  here  in  my  hands 
an  individual.  I  study  him  for  himself,  out  of  scientific 
curiosity.  The  perfection  I  aim  at  is  to  give  to  my  read- 
ers the  rigorously  exact  anatomy  of  the  subject  given 
to  me.  It  was  my  task  to  penetrate  an  organism,  to  re- 
construct an  artistic  temperament,  to  analyze  a  heart  and 
an  intelligence,  according  to  my  nature :  the  readers  have 
a  right  to  admire  or  blame,  according  to  theirs. 

"  There  you  have  it,  Joe,  the  spirit  of  science  abso- 
lutely destructive  to  art,  as  it  is  to  religion.  It  is  the 
spirit  of  impartiality,  of  absolute  indifference  to  the 
subject;  and  art  is  the  spirit  of  love,  the  spirit  of  selec- 
tion, the  power  of  distinction.  One  is  all  curiosity,  the 
other  is  all  sympathy:  one  dissects,  the  other  creates: 
the  one  is  not  possible  without  weights  and  measures ; 
and  the  other  concerns  itself  with  soul  whose  thoughts 
and  feelings  can  neither  be  measured  nor  weighed.  Sci- 
ence is  impersonal ;  art  is  deeply  personal,  or  it  is  not  art 
at  all,  it  is  only  cataloguing  and  photographing.  Sci- 
ence has  discovered  the  cave-man  and  the  low  instincts 
that  linked  him  with  the  brute ;  and  literature  for  the  last 
half  century  has  been  sedulously  bent  on  re-discovering 
the  cave-man  under  the  polished  surface  of  modern  so- 
ciety, and  inventing  him,  when  he  can't  be  found  in  every- 
body." 

Mr.  Treloar  paused  to  wipe  his  face  with  his  handker- 
chief and  Dr.  Parker  took  advantage  of  the  pause  to 
say: 

"  You've  made  out  a  pretty  good  case  against  science 
as  a  promoter  of  art  without  quoting  Darwin's  confession 


186  THE  TRELOARS 

in  later  life  that  his  faculty  for  aesthetic  enjoyment  had 
atrophied  for  want  of  use,  and  he  was  unable  to  read 
any  poetry  with  pleasure.  I  can't  say  that  I've  come  to 
that  pass,  having  followed  Goethe's  maxim  rather  lit- 
erally to  read  a  little  poetry,  hear  a  little  music,  and  speak 
a  few  sensible  words,  every  day.  But  I  should  like  to 
say  that  what  I  know  of  real  science  so  disgusts  me  with 
the  pseudo-science  of  novelists,  artists,  and  poets  as  well 
as  that  of  the  public  in  general,  that  I  should  be  willing 
to  have  it  made  a  capital  offense  for  any  of  them  to 
meddle  with  it.  Science,  rightly  understood,  emphasizes 
standards  and  forms,  and  all  this  formlessness  in  art,  of 
which  Dick  speaks,  is  as  far  from  science  as  the  antipodes, 
no  matter  what  name  it  gives  to  the  masks  it  puts  on. 
A  braying  ass  on  a  dunghill  might  call  himself  Pegasus 
on  Mount  Olympus,  but  that  would  not  shorten  his  ears, 
nor  give  solidity  and  height  to  his  footing.  But  all  these 
questions  do  not  trouble  me  much,  to-day.  I  have  got 
a  more  intimate  problem  of  my  own.  I'd  like  to  know 
what  the  deuce  is  the  matter  with  young  people,  nowa- 
days, that  they  are  absolutely  insensible  to  the  charms  of 
home !  " 

"  Not  guilty !  "  shouted  Dick.  "  For  me,  there  is  no 
place  like  home." 

"  You  wouldn't  exchange  it  for  a  hospital  roof,  then  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  I  mean  that  that  is  what  Dolly  wants  to  do." 

"Is  Dolly  sick?" 

"  Sick  ?  No !  She's  as  well  as  you  are.  Sick  of 
home,  that's  all.  She  wants  to  be  a  nurse !  " 

The  doctor's  face  expressed  extreme  disgust. 

"  Well,  why  shouldn't  she  be  a  nurse,  if  she  wants  to?  " 
inquired  Treloar,  lighting  a  cigar. 

"  You  wouldn't  say  that  if  Margaret  got  the  same 
idea  into  her  head." 

"Wouldn't  I?  That's  just  where  you're  mistaken.  I 
believe  in  the  absolute  liberty  of  the  individual  to  choose 
his  own  life  work,  his  environment,  adHKs  companions. 
But  I  believe  in  liberty,  you  don't." 


THE  TRELOARS  187 

"  Then  you  would  cheerfully  give  your  consent  to  any 
mad  scheme  that  scampered  through  your  children's 
heads?" 

"  Certainly,  all  I  feel  responsible  for,  are  the  schemes 
of  my  own." 

"  I  haven't  got  to  that  stage  of  personal  abnegation 
where  I  can  be  indifferent,  when  my  daughter's  real  happi- 
ness is  at  stake." 

"  What  do  you  know  about  your  daughter's  real  happi- 
ness? You  interpret  her  happiness  in  your  terms  not 
hers.  It's  my  opinion  that  people  ought  to  be  happy  in 
their  own  way.  If  Dolly  wants  to  be  a  nurse,  let  her  be 
a  nurse." 

"  That's  what  I'm  going  to  do ;  but  it  is  because  I  can't 
help  myself.  I  am  going  into  Oakland  now,  to  make 
arrangements  in  a  hospital  for  having  her  commence  a 
training  course.  I  think  I  can  have  her  spared  some  of 
the  preliminary  drudgery." 

"  What !  You  who  believe  that  the  great  fault  in 
public  school  education  is  that  it  wants  to  smooth  out  all 
the  child's  difficulties  and  turn  his  work  into  play,  you 
want  to  spare  your  girl  all  the  common  drudgery  of  her 
work?  Let  her  do  it.  Let  her  know  what  it  is  to  mop 
floors  and  clean  out  spittoons.  It  won't  look  such  fun 
to  her  in  reality,  as  it  does  now." 

"  You  may  be  right." 

"  I  know  I'm  right." 

Thinking  the  matter  over,  as  he  left  the  house,  Dr. 
Parker  came  to  the  same  conclusion,  but  he  was  not  any 
happier  for  it.  He  was  not  given  to  indulging  himself  in 
melancholy  moods,  but  he  could  not  shake  off  the  dull 
depression  which  had  clouded  his  spirits  ever  since  Dolly 
had  assured  him  of  her  resolve  to  go  into  training  as 
a  nurse.  He  had  reasoned  with  her  about  it,  to  no  pur- 
pose. She  had  a  ready  answer  to  all  his  objections,  and 
he  had  been  too  proud  to  do  more  than  hint  at  the  chief 
one  —  namely,  that  he  felt  himself  abandoned,  that  her 
love  and  companionship  made  the  entire  pleasure  of  his 


188  THE  TRELOARS 

life,  and  he  would  be  desolate  without  her.  She  should 
have  known  that;  had  she  loved  him  with  but  half  the 
affection  which  he  lavished  upon  hers  she  would  have 
felt  the  same  impossibility  for  happiness  apart  from  him. 
So  he  said  to  himself,  and  a  dreary  bitterness  filled  him 
at  the  thought. 

Dr.  Parker  was  making  a  manly  effort  to  throw  off 
his  pain  and  disappointment,  but  was  not  succeeding  very 
well.  The  hurt  was  too  new,  to  begin  healing  yet  and 
its  pain  colored  his  atmosphere.  The  fairness  of  the 
morning  was  a  mockery  to  him.  The  twittering  of  the 
birds  struck  his  ear  as  a  discordant  note,  and  the  old 
question  asked  so  insistently  by  his  old  friend,  as  an  echo 
of  his  century's  question :  Is  life  worth  living?  appeared 
to  him  to  have  no  answer  but  the  negative  one.  Yet,  any 
one  would  have  been  gifted  with  unusual  intuition,  who, 
two  hours  later,  would  have  recognized  under  his  calm  ex- 
terior all  this  dull,  insipid  despair :  —  dull  and  insipid,  be- 
cause it  was  the  despair  of  advancing  age,  and  not  the 
poignant,  torturing  anguish  of  youth  —  the  very  sharp- 
ness of  which  predicts  its  transient  character.  He  walked 
along  the  bare,  clean  corridors  of  the  hospital  with  a 
firm  and  confident  step,  for  he  felt  at  home  there.  He 
questioned  the  doctors  and  nurses  about  some  interest- 
ing cases  under  their  care;  then  revealed  the  object  of  his 
visit,  with  as  much  coolness,  as  if  it  had  been  a  question 
of  ordering  supplies.  And  what  is  more,  he  carried  his 
calmness  home  with  him,  and  talked  to  Dolly  of  her  new 
plans  in  such  an  indifferent,  matter  of  fact  way  that 
Dolly  was  piqued  into  saying : 

"  Daddy,  I  believe  you  are  glad  to  get  rid  of  me." 

To  which  he  coolly  replied : 

"  Well,  Dolly,  if  it  makes  you  any  happier  to  think  so, 
you  are  welcome  to  the  delusion." 

Looking  at  him  intently,  her  bright,  young  face  clouded 
over,  for  she  divined  the  pain  which  he  was  so  well  con- 
cealing, and  with  a  halting  voice,  she  said  : 

"  Daddy,  dear,  I  know  I  seem  an  ungrateful  girl,  but 


THE  TRELOARS  189 

I  really  am  not.  I  only  want  to  broaden  out  a  little.  I 
want  to  see  the  world  at  another  angle.  What  do  I  know 
of  it,  sheltered  so  warm  and  cosily  here?  In  one  way, 
I  feel  quite  grown  up ;  in  another  way,  I  am  just  a  baby, 
and  I  want  to  balance  myself.  I  have  been  turning 
round  and  round  myself  and  you,  till  I  am  dizzy.  I  can't 
stop  and  stagnate.  I  must  walk  on  ahead,  and  take  my 
mind  off  myself.  Don't  you  understand,  Daddy?" 


CHAPTER  XIX 

DICK'S  return  to  San  Francisco  was  accompanied  by  a 
plentiful  harvest  of  second  thoughts.  In  talking  the 
whole  matter  of  his  violent  behavior  at  the  banquet, 
frankly  over  with  his  father,  he  had  rid  himself  of  his 
mental  bile,  and,  in  consequence,  the  hue  of  the  world 
had  a  livelier  tint  to  him.  He  felt  as  if  he  had  made  a 
fool  of  himself  by  his  unseemly  attack  on  the  Italian ;  and, 
having  that  sort  of  mentality  which  cannot  be  reconciled 
to  itself,  until  it  has  repaired  its  mistakes,  he  determined, 
after  deliberating  a  week  over  the  matter,  to  seek  Max 
and  humbly  beg  his  pardon  for  what  he  had  done,  with- 
out in  the  least  receding  from  his  convictions. 

He  found  Max  in  his  office  engaged  in  getting  ready 
for  the  mail  a  large  number  of  sample  copies  of  the  Dawn. 
The  windows  were  open,  and  the  street  noises  prevented 
him  from  hearing  Dick  enter,  and  he  was  not  aware  of 
Dick's  presence,  until  he  was  at  his  elbow.  Max  looked 
at  him  for  a  moment  in  great  surprise,  then  a  broad  smile 
spread  over  his  face,  and  he  cordially  pressed  Dick's  ex- 
tended hand. 

"  Max,"  said  Dick  hurriedly,  "  I  was  a  fool  that  night 
at  the  banquet.  Will  you  forgive  me  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  old  man,"  replied  Max,  cheerfully.  "  You 
were  decidedly  off  your  base,  weren't  you?  It's  a  good 
thing  you  didn't  break  any  of  that  little  fellow's  bones, 
or  you  would  have  had  a  hospital  bill  on  your  hands,  let 


190  THE  TRELOARS 

alone  an  assault  and  battery  charge.  In  fact,  I  saved  you 
from  the  latter  by  arguing  that  as  the  speaker  had  been 
advocating  that  sort  of  thing  in  futuristic  education,  he 
couldn't  logically  object  to  an  illustration  of  it.  I  don't 
think  he  liked  it,  though ;  for  he  had  a  futuristic  picture 
of  a  countenance  that  was  no  improvement  to  his  beauty. 
I  guess  he's  got  it  yet.  The  upshot  of  the  whole  thing 
was,  that  as  we  said  we  were  eager  to  make  a  sensation, 
we  could  congratulate  ourselves  on  having  done  it.  By 
the  way,  if  you  are  really  penitent,  you  might  give  us  a 
damn  good  roasting  in  your  paper.  We  are  not  looking 
just  yet  for  acquiescence  or  even  toleration.  We  just 
want  our  place  in  the  sun.  Whether  we  stand  on  it  with 
bloody  heads  or  whole  ones,  doesn't  matter  so  long  as 
we  are  out  of  the  shade.  What  do  you  say  ?  " 

Dick  made  a  wry  face  and  recalled  Margaret's  advice. 
In  the  light  of  Max's  speech,  it  took  on  a  new  value,  so  he 
extricated  himself  by  the  miserable  subterfuge  of  equivo- 
cation, so  difficult  is  honest  criticism  in  the  presence  of 
friendship. 

"  But  don't  you  see,  Max,  that  I  am  here  because  I  am 
repentant?  That  means  that  I  am  in  no  mood  to  repeat 
my  attack  in  any  form." 

Max  looked  disappointed,  and  then  said  eagerly : 

"  Well  then,  Dick,  I  ask  it  as  a  personal  favor.  Give 
us  hell,  the  hotter  the  better !  —  so  that  your  article  will 
be  copied  by  other  papers  and  make  the  tour  of  the  con- 
tinent. We  might  spend  a  small  fortune  in  advertising 
ourselves,  and  not  get  the  returns  that  a  good  denuncia- 
tion, full  of  '  pep '  and  ginger  would  give  us.  Do  you 
remember  Bobby  Burns's  gay  defiance  of  the  '  unco  guid  '  ? 
— '  The  mair  they  talk,  I'm  kent  the  better.'  He  was 
right.  Publication  in  any  form  is  a  good  deal  nearer 
recognition  than  nothing  at  all.  Think  of  the  slimy  tur- 
bid flux  of  speech  that's  getting  recognized  nowadays,  as 
purest  water  from  the  Pierian  Springs.  Our  stuff's  no 
worse  than  that." 

Dick  looked  actually  sick;  but  he  had  not  come  to 
quarrel  with  Max,  so  he  said  weakly : 


THE  TRELOARS  191 

"  I'll  see  about  it." 

"Do!  that's  a  good  fellow!  See,  here's  a  copy  of  the 
Dawn.  1  had  just  finished  addressing  it  to  you,  when  you 
came  in.  You  can  take  it  with  you." 

He  handed  Dick  a  copy,  which  the  latter  took  mechanic- 
ally, and  then  he  went  on : 

"  I'm  sending  Nita  Normand  a  copy,  too.  By  the  way, 
have  you  seen  her  lately?  I  went  round  to  the  theater 
the  other  night  and  found  an  understudy  in  her  role. 
They  said  she  was  sick.  I  sent  her  some  flowers;  but 
I've  been  too  busy  to  call.  Have  you  seen  her  ?  " 

Dick's  heart  leaped.  His  face  which  had  been  scarlet, 
turned  white.  Max  saw  his  embarrassment,  and  tactfully 
turning  away  his  head  and  pretending  to  look  among  his 
papers  for  something,  he  said  carelessly: 

"  O,  it  isn't  anything  serious ;  a  bad  cold,  I  think  they 
said;  voice  gone  temporarily,  or  something  of  that  sort. 
I  dare  say  she's  on  the  mend  now.  That  was  several  days 
ago.  The  company's  going  to  take  to  the  road  again 
next  week,  I  hear;  so  she'll  be  leaving  us." 

Max  took  up  his  pen  again,  as  if  to  resume  his  work, 
and  Dick,  catching  at  the  chance  to  escape,  said  with  an 
heroic  effort  at  calmness : 

"  No,  I  hadn't  heard  anything  about  it.  But  I  mustn't 
interrupt  you  any  longer.  Good-by.  I'll  see  you  again, 
shortly." 

"  All  right !     Don't  forget  that  article." 

He  rose  from  his  chair  as  he  spoke,  and  giving  his 
hand  amicably  to  Dick,  continued: 

"  I  don't  think  I'll  send  your  sister  a  copy.  There's 
no  use  shocking  her,  unnecessarily,  is  there  ?  " 

"  No,  although  I  doubt  if  she  would  take  it  seriously 
enough  to  be  shocked.  I  told  her  what  I  did  at  the  ban- 
quet. She  was  shocked  enough  at  that,  I  assure  you." 

"  Was  she  ?  "  Max  laughed  heartily.  "  Well,  it  was 
a  little  unconventional;  not  exactly  in  accordance  with 
the  table  manners  she  taught  you;  but  to  tell  you  the 
honest  truth,  Dick,  I  rather  enjoyed  the  scene.  I  was 


192  THE  TRELOARS 

beginning  to  feel  bored.     There  is  such  a  thing  as  having 
too  much  of  a  good  thing." 

"  You're  very  kind  to  say  that.  It  was  really  horrible 
of  me,  Max  Good-by." 

He  hastened  down  the  steps  and  into  the  noisy  street, 
unconscious  of  its  bustling  crowds  coming  to  and  going 
from  the  ferry,  unconscious  of  the  floods  of  sunshine,  and 
the  unclouded  sky,  unconscious  of  everything  but  that 
Nita  was  ill.  Nita  was  going  to  leave  San  Francisco,  and 
he  might  never  see  her  again.  The  reaction  of  tenderness 
which  had  prompted  him  to  seek  Max  concentrated  itself 
now  upon  Nita.  Arrived  at  the  hotel  where  she  was,  he 
sat  down  in  the  reception  room  and  wrote  three  or  four 
little  notes  to  be  sent  to  her  room,  tearing  them  up  and 
thrusting  the  scraps  into  his  pockets,  before  he  succeeded 
in  simply  saying : 

"  I  implore  you  to  let  me  see  you,  a  moment.  I  was 
wrong;  you  were  right,  and  I  am  inexpressibly  unhappy 
to  be  wrong  without  saying  so  to  your  face,  and  begging 
your  forgiveness. 

"  RICHARD  TRELOAR." 

When  his  note  came  to  her  she  was  sitting  in  a  low, 
cushioned  arm  chair,  drawn  up  before  a  window  looking 
out  upon  a  grassy  public  square  ornamented  with  flower 
beds  and  palms.  She  had  on  a  loose  blue  robe  trimmed 
with  ecru  lace.  Her  wavy  hair  was  loosely  knotted  at  the 
back  of  her  head.  A  slight  fever  lent  a  flush  to  her  face 
and  brightened  her  dark  eyes  that  were  looking  longingly 
out  at  the  open  window.  The  enforced  idleness  and  dis- 
comfort of  a  week's  illness  was  telling  on  her  in  a  fit  of 
depression,  such  as  she  had  not  felt  in  many  years.  She 
had  quarreled  again  with  her  manager.  The  necessity  of 
renewing  her  contract  with  him  was  hateful  to  her. 
Then  she  thought  of  Dick.  What  a  fool  she  had  been 
to  quarrel  with  him !  He  had  recognized  what  was  best 
in  her.  He  had  regilded  her  tarnished  life  with  the 
bright  gold  of  his  poetic  fancy,  and  she  had  deliber- 


THE  TRELOARS  193 

ately  chosen  to  brush  it  off,  and  to  show  herself  to  him 
in  such  a  way  as  to  destroy  his  respect  and  affection  for 
her.  How  could  she  ever  have  been  impatient  with  his 
youthful  reserves  !  If  she  could  only  see  him  once  more ! 
Should  she  write  to  him?  At  this  moment,  there  was  a 
knock  at  the  door,  and  at  her  reply,  an  office  boy  entered 
with  Dick's  note.  She  opened  it  hastily  and  the  bright 
hue  deepened  in  her  face,  as  she  read.  It  had  been  a 
long  time  since  her  heart  had  quickened  so  spontaneously 
at  the  touch  of  another.  She  turned  to  the  boy  after 
reading  the  note,  saying: 

"  Tell  him  to  wait  ten  minutes,  and  then  he  is  to  come 
up,  and  I  will  see  him." 

When  the  messenger  was  gone,  she  put  her  lips  to  the 
paper,  murmuring :  "  Dear,  dear  boy !  How  good,  how 
lovely  of  you! " 

She  hastened  to  the  mirror,  arranged  her  hair  a  little 
more  loosely  about  her  temples,  letting  here  and  there  a 
short  ringlet  fall  negligently  over  her  forehead.  She 
softened  the  flush  on  her  face  with  a  touch  of  powder, 
and  pinned  a  knot  of  lace  at  her  neck  where  the  low-cut 
gown  revealed  to  perfection  its  round  white  fullness.  She 
slipped  off  her  woolen  bed-room  slippers,  and  put  on  a 
pair  of  dainty  white  kid  ones.  Then  she  glanced  about 
the  room  to  correct  any  disorder,  any  hint  of  illness  that 
might  be  discovered.  A  white  blanket  was  trailing  over 
the  couch  and  she  hastily  folded  it  and  carried  it  into  the 
adjoining  bed-room.  She  had  the  sure  instinct  of  the 
healthy  woman  who  knows  that  health  is  power.  She 
herself  had  a  horror  of  the  sick  room,  and  an  extravagant 
admiration  for  health  and  strength.  She  would  no  more 
have  dreamed  of  playing  upon  Dick's  sympathies  by  a 
show  of  physical  weakness  than  a  stricken  deer  would 
seek  the  herd  for  sympathy  with  its  pain.  She  was 
proud  to  match  his  youth  and  vigor  by  a  youth  and  vigor 
as  beautiful  as  his  own;  for  nature  had  given  her  that 
vigor  and  elasticity  of  intellect  which  are  ever  the  truest 


194  THE  TRELOARS 

youth,  compared  with  which,  mere  bodily  youth  is  stupid 
and  powerless. 

She  answered  his  knock  at  the  door,  by  opening  it  her- 
self;  and  when  she  stood  before  him,  smiling,  beautiful, 
a  great  rapture  swept  over  him. 

"  O,  how  happy  I  am !  "  he  cried.  "  I  thought  you  were 
ill." 

He  stepped  into  the  room  and  she  drew  up  a  chair  for 
him,  opposite  hers,  near  the  window ;  but  he  did  not  take 
it.  He  stood  before  her,  his  soul  in  his  eyes.  He 
longed  to  take  her  into  his  arms,  to  tell  her  how  inex- 
pressibly dear  she  was  to  him.  She  still  smiled  at  him,  as 
she  answered: 

"  It  was  nothing  serious,  only  a  cold  in  my  throat  which 
made  me  very  hoarse,  and  as  my  voice,  not  my  face,  is 
my  fortune,  I  had  to  be  silent  and  take  care  of  it.  You 
see  there  is  still  a  blur  in  it." 

A  blur  in  it  ?  No,  it  was  more  sweetly,  clearly  resonant 
to  his  ear  than  ever. 

"  But  how  beautiful  it  was  of  you,"  she  continued,  put- 
ting out  her  hand  and  taking  his,  "  to  forgive  my  shame- 
ful petulance.  I  think  my  illness  was  coming  on.  I  am 
sure  I  wasn't  myself.  Can  you  forgive  me  ?  I  can't  for- 
give myself." 

"  Forgive  you?  "  he  cried.  "  It  is  I  who  need  to  be  for- 
given, not  you.  I  who  dare  set  my  narrow  vision  against 
your  broad  one  and  insist  that  you  should  see  as  I  do." 

"  No,"  she  said  hastily,  still  letting  her  hand  rest  in  his. 
"  Do  not  say  that.  It  is  not  a  question  of  breadth  and 
narrowness  between  us.  It  is  a  question  of  individuality. 
You  have  yours,  I  have  mine.  Life  hasn't  been  exactly 
kind  to  me,  and  I  have  had  to  adjust  myself  to  its  unex- 
pected demands.  These  adjustments  are  my  peculiarities. 
They  make  life  possible  to  me,  and  I  love  life,  love  it  now, 
to  its  very  dregs,  although,  of  course,  I  have  my  brief 
hours  of  nausea  when  I  am  not  sure  that  to  be  is  infinitely 
better  than  not  to  be,  but  I  always  recover  from  them.  I 
am  going  to  tell  you  a  secret.  You  won't  tell  anybody, 
will  you  ? " 


THE  TRELOARS  195 

She  put  her  forefinger  to  her  lips,  her  eyes  sparkled 
merrily  and  her  voice  took  on  its  most  persuasive  tones. 

"  I  was  just  having  one  of  them  before  you  came  — 
My  sky  was  indigo  —  you  brought  the  sunshine,  and 
now  it  is  as  blue  as  an  Italian  sky,  and  I  have  a  whole 
nest  of  singing  birds  in  my  heart." 

She  extended  her  other  hand  to  him,  and  he  pressed  it 
to  his  lips.  His  heart  was  too  full  to  speak :  tears  were 
in  his  eyes.  They  looked  at  each  other  a  moment  and 
then  he  said  in  a  low,  broken  voice: 

"  Nita,  my  darling,  I  cannot  live  without  you  any  longer. 
That  is  why  I  am  here.  You  are  my  sunshine  without 
which  I  starve  with  cold.  Let  me  love  you;  let  me  live 
for  you ;  let  me  be  always  to  you  the  sunshine  that  you 
are  to  me,  the  source  of  all  my  life,  light,  joy ! " 

The  glowing,  passionate  young  face,  so  near  her  own, 
drew  her  like  a  magnet.  She  lifted  her  head  and  kissed 
the  moist,  trembling  lips,  and  he  shuddered  with  ecstasy 
at  the  touch.  She  drew  her  slender,  white  fingers  through 
the  masses  of  his  dark  hair,  murmuring: 

"  My  poor  boy,  my  dear  boy,  I  have  come  into  your 
life  for  harm,  not  for  good,  I  fear.  Listen  to  me,"  her 
voice  sank  almost  to  a  whisper.  "  Love  me  as  men  love 
the  rose  for  its  fresh,  sweet  beauty  of  an  hour,  then  they 
fling  it  from  them.  I  am  not  worth  more  than  that.  Love 
me  like  that,  and  then  forget  me." 

She  sat  down  on  the  couch  and  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands.  He  sat  down  beside  her,  and  took  her  hands 
from  her  face,  exclaiming  passionately: 

"  Never !  never !  I  cannot  forget  you.  You  have 
burned  yourself  into  my  life,  so  that  it  can  never  bear 
any  other  image  but  yours.  I  have  tried  to  forget  you. 
I  made  a  solemn  pledge  to  my  sister  that  you  should  be 
nothing  more  to  me.  It  was  the  pledge  of  a  thirsty  man 
who  vowed  he  would  not  drink  when  there  was  no  water 
in  sight,  but  whose  parched  lips  sought  the  fountain  as 
soon  as  it  bubbled  before  him.  You  are  mine,  mine, 
mine! " 


196  THE  TRELOARS 

He  encircled  her  in  his  arms,  he  pressed  her  head  close 
to  his  breast. 

"  I  shall  never  give  you  up  !  Never  !  What  is  your 
past  to  me.  You  were  born  anew  the  day  I  first  saw  you. 
You  have  no  faults  in  my  eyes.  I  am  not  worthy  of  you, 
but  you  make  my  life  lovely  by  the  reflection  of  your  own 
loveliness  in  it.  You  love  me  a  little,  don't  you?  or  you 
wouldn't  let  me  hold  you  in  this  way  close  to  my  heart 
where  I  shall  hold  you  as  long  as  it  beats.  Say  you  love 
me,  sweetheart  —  say  it  to  me,  dear." 

He  bent  his  head  over  hers,  he  kissed  her  hair.  The 
wild  generosity  of  his  love  and  the  contagion  of  his  pas- 
sion touched  her  deeply,  and  she  answered  : 

"  I  do  love  you,  my  dear  boy.  I  do  love  you  unselfishly 
enough  to  save  you  from  myself.  Nature  never  meant 
we  should  mate,  or  she  would  have  sent  you  to  me  in  my 
innocent  girlhood.  I  must  teach  you  to  escape  me." 

"Escape  me? 

Never 

Beloved! 

While  I  am  I,  and  you  are  you} 

So  long  as  the  world  contains  us  both  — 

Me  the  loving,  and  you  the  loth 

While  the  one  eludes  must  the  other  pursue" 


The  poet's  words  sprang  to  his  eager  lip§,  as  if  they  had 
been  coined  fresh  in  his  own  brain  ;  and  he  only  drew  his 
arm  more  closely  about  her. 

"  You  love  me,  that  is  enough  for  me  —  and  I  mean 
that  you  shall  never  leave  me.  Do  you  know  that  I  only 
learned,  a  little  while  ago,  that  your  company  is  to  leave 
town  next  week;  and  it  was  as  if  somebody  had  said  to 
me,  '  The  world  is  in  ruins.'  It  was  hideous  !  I  couldn't 
endure  it,  and  I  hurried  here,  bent  upon  seeing  you,  bent 
upon  winning  my  life  from  you,  who  were  going  to  carry 
it  away  with  you." 

She  lifted  her  head  from  his  breast,  and  disengaging 
herself  from  his  arms,  said  in  unfeigned  astonishment: 

"  Who  told  you  that  the  company  is  to  leave  town  ?  " 


THE  TRELOARS  197 

"  Max  Gietmann." 

"  But  it  can't  be  true !  At  any  rate,  nothing  has  been 
said  to  me  about  it.  I  wonder  if  —  no,  that  can't  be  so ; 
they  wouldn't  do  anything  so  dishonorable.  Where  did 
Max  learn  that  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  But  what  difference  does  it  make  ? 
You  are  not  going  with  them,  sweetheart.  You  are  go- 
ing to  be  my  wife.  You  are  going  to  have  no  care  but 
that  of  making  a  home  for  us." 

"  Dear  Dick,  don't  be  absurd !  " 

Her  face  clouded  over.  A  sudden  deadly  fear  tugged 
at  her  heart.  Was  it  possible  that  her  manager  meant 
to  give  her  the  slip  ?  He  was  vexed  with  her  for  refusing 
to  play  the  past  week,  attributing  her  refusal  to  caprice, 
rather  than  illness;  and  she  had  been  too  proud  to  take 
the  pains  to  disabuse  him.  He  reminded  her  that  her 
contract  required  another  fortnight's  service  and  that  she 
need  not  expect  to  receive  full  salary  without  a  complete 
fulfillment  of  the  contract.  He  had  sent  her  what  he 
owed  her,  but  had  not  asked  for  a  renewal  of  her  contract 
with  him;  but  conscious  of  her  real  ability,  and  perhaps 
overrating  her  importance  to  him,  she  had  felt  no  anxiety 
on  that  score,  until  Dick's  sudden  revelation  made  her 
feel  at  once  that  he  meant  to  let  her  go  her  own  way, 
while  he  went  his.  She  was  wretchedly  unhappy  at  the 
assurance.  Dick  was  not  the  least  perturbed  at  her  al- 
tered manner.  Had  she  not  called  him  "  Dear  Dick  "  ? 
Had  she  not  told  him  that  she  loved  him?  If  that  were 
absurdity,  what  had  he  to  do  with  sense? 

"  You  see,  Dick,"  she  went  on,  "  if  it  is  really  true 
that  the  company  is  going  away,  or  has  gone  without  me, 
I  shall  be  for  a  time  in  rather  a  bad  situation." 

"  With  me  near  you,  beloved  ?  " 

His  arm  went  about  her  waist  again,  and  his  hot  lips 
touched  her  cool,  white  neck. 

"  Dick,  you  are  very  generous ;  you  are  very  kind.  I 
have  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  the  world  that  you  love 
me  now." 


198  THE  TRELOARS 

"Love  you?    I  adore  you." 

"  But  don't  you  see  what  a  foolish,  what  an  impossible 
thing  it  is  for  me  to  become  your  wife  ?  " 

"  No.  I  see  that  it  is  impossible  for  you  to  be  anything 
else." 

His  strong  arm  tightened  about  her  until  she  cried  out : 

"  Dick,  you  are  hurting  me.  There,  that's  better.  Do 
you  know  that  I  am  a  great  deal  older  than  you  ?  " 

"  What  a  stupid  thing  for  so  wise  and  beautiful  a 
woman  to  say !  Love  has  no  age.  He  is  only  a  perpetual 
now.  I  would  not  have  you  a  day  younger  than  you  are, 
if  I  could ;  for  then  you  wouldn't  be  you." 

"  But  I  am  not  fit  for  domestic  life.  I  have  tasted 
public  applause.  It  is  an  infection.  One  never  gets  over 
it.  I  should  tire  of  the  monotony  of  the  fireside,"  a 
shiver  ran  over  her.  "  No,  Dick,  I  can't  bind  myself  by 
an  inviolable  oath.  As  soon  as  it  was  made  I  should 
want  to  break  it.  There  is  something  wild,  untamable  in 
my  blood  that  makes  liberty  a  necessity  of  my  life.  I 
love  you  to-day,  but  I  can't  swear  that  I  shall  love  you 
to-morrow  or  next  week,  or  next  year.  Take  me  as  I  am ; 
love  me  while  I  love  you,  and  let  us  guard  our  liberty, 
Dick." 

He  dropped  his  face  in  his  hands  and  trembled  like  a 
leaf.  She  put  her  hand  upon  his  bent  head  and  stroked 
it  tenderly,  as  a  mother  strokes  the  head  of  a  child  in 
grief.  After  a  few  moments  of  tense  silence,  he  lifted  his 
head.  His  face  was  distorted  with  passion,  his  eyes 
blazed  with  a  concentrated  fire  that  fascinated  her. 

"  No,  by  Heaven !  "  he  cried.  "  I  will  not  make  you  a 
thing  for  the  world  to  point  its  finger  at.  You  shall  be 
my  wife  before  all  the  world;  but  you  shall  be  as  free 
as  air.  At  the  first  call  of  that  wild  untamable  blood  of 
yours,  you  shall  leave  me,  and  I  shall  not  whimper.  That 
is  in  the  contract.  What !  You  call  yourself  free,  and 
you  are  afraid  of  a  conventional  ceremony?  What  oath 
could  bind  you  when  your  heart  had  slipped  the  bond? 
What  power  on  earth  could  make  you  mine,  when  your 


THE  TRELOARS  199 

will  revolted?  You  are  free!  free  as  air  in  my  love. 
Bid  me  go  now,  and  I  leave  you  instantly." 

"  Go !  "  she  said  with  a  mocking  smile  on  her  lips,  and 
he  rose  instantly,  as  if  he  had  felt  the  cut  of  a  whip  across 
his  cheek.  Without  a  word  he  put  his  hand  on  his  hat, 
and  moved  towards  the  door. 

"  Come !  "  she  said,  and  he  turned  towards  her,  his 
face  white,  his  cheeks  twitching  nervously. 

"  No,  don't  play  with  me,"  he  said  huskily.  "  Tell  me 
frankly,  what  is  your  will  with  me." 

She  moved  quickly  towards  him,  all  her  doubts  and  hesi- 
tation melting  in  the  fire  of  his  passion. 

"  Dick,  you  are  glorious ! "  she  said,  putting  her  arms 
about  his  neck.  "  I  did  not  know  you  had  so  strong  a 
will,  so  clean  and  warm  a  heart!  Save  me  from  my 
worse  self ;  take  me  to  you  as  your  wife,  if  you  will ;  but 
if  the  day  should  ever  —  come  —  when  —  you  regret 
it " 

She  was  weeping  softly  she  could  say  no  more,  and 
he  whispered,  as  he  folded  her  in  his  arms : 

"  I  shall  never  regret  it.  I  would  rather  be  made  un- 
happy by  you,  than  be  happy  with  any  other  woman  in 
the  world ! " 

O,  the  glory  and  the  rapture  of  that  day!  The 
strange,  hushed,  sacred  light  of  it,  as  the  evening  shadows 
fell  when  the  sun's  red  rim  dipped  below  the  waters  of 
the  Golden  Gate!  Dick  had  left  the  city  when  he  had 
left  her,  his  affianced  bride.  What  had  he  in  common 
with  the  care-worn  crowd?  He  wanted  infinite  space 
for  the  great  tides  of  feeling  that  swelled  within  him. 
He  could  not  understand,  now,  the  vicious  anger  which 
had  filled  him  at  the  banquet,  for  the  surface  glow  of  the 
consuming  fire  within  him  diffused  its  soft,  warm  color 
over  all  life.  He  felt  exquisitely  tender  to  the  humblest 
manifestations  of  it  and,  literally,  could  not  have  set  foot 
upon  a  worm.  He  was  capable  of  the  sublimest  courage 
and  the  most  laughable  absurdity,  for  the  white  light 
of  reason  was  burning  low  in  him  just  now,  and  the  red 
light  of  passion  blurred  his  vision. 


200  THE  TRELOARS 


CHAPTER  XX 

"THE  only  thing  which  makes  me  unhappy  about  it 
is  this  —  I  know  that  it  makes  father  unhappy.  It  isn't 
that  he  says  anything  you  know,  Margaret."  Dolly 
shifted  her  bundle  from  her  right  arm  to  her  left,  as  she 
started  to  unlatch  the  gate  which  opened  upon  the  Tunnel 
Road.  The  bundle  contained  her  neat,  pretty  nurse's 
dress  of  blue  and  white  striped  gingham.  She  had  come 
over  to  the  Treloars  to  show  it  to  Margaret  and  to  try  it 
on.  Margaret  had  pronounced  it  a  perfect  fit,  and  had 
told  Dolly  that  she  looked  so  cheerful  in  it,  that  she 
thought  it  would  be  hard  work  for  anybody  to  be  sick  in 
her  presence.  Then  she  had  gone  on  to  the  gate  with 
Dolly,  because  the  postman  would  be  due  in  a  few  min- 
utes, and  she  was  expecting  a  letter  from  Dick. 

"If  he  would  say  something,"  continued  Dolly,  "  I 
should  have  a  chance  to  talk  it  out  with  him.  Then  I 
should  make  him  understand  that  I  am  not  unloving  and 
ungrateful.  But  he  won't  let  me  say  a  word  about  it. 
He  changes  the  subject  immediately  or  he  leaves  the 
house.  But,  sometime,  Margaret,  when  you  have  a 
chance,  I  wish  you  would  talk  to  him  and  tell  him  how 
impossible  it  is  for  me  to  shut  myself  out  of  the  larger 
life  of  work  and  duty  that  is  calling  me.  You  under- 
stand me,  don't  you,  Margaret  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  do,  Dolly,  and  I  think  your  father  does,  too ; 
and,  if  he  doesn't  choose  to  talk  about  it,  it  is  because  he 
can't  do  it  without  showing  emotion  and  he  is  too  proud 
to  do  that.  Many  a  man  has  the  trick  of  playing  the 
stoic  when  he  feels  the  deepest.  I  remember  when  a 
child  overhearing  a  neighbor  of  ours,  the  dearest  little 
woman,  telling  mother  that  every  ornament  she  had,  even 
to  her  wedding-ring  meant  a  quarrel  with  her  husband. 
He  had  never  learned  to  say,  '  Forgive  me'  and  it  was 
easier  for  him  to  buy  his  reconciliation  than  to  ask  for 
it.  She  said  that  she  had  learned  to  accept  his  repentance 


THE  TRELOARS  201 

in  this  form,  but  that  it  made  her  jewels  hateful  to  her, 
and  that  one  gentle,  affectionate  word  would  have  touched 
her  heart  more  than  all  the  lovely  things  in  the  world.  I 
pity  enormously  these  reserved  natures  whose  tongues 
can't  do  the  service  of  their  hearts.  They  are  always 
misunderstood,  always  being  called  cold  and  heartless, 
when  they  feel  the  warmest." 

"  I  don't  think  father  cold  and  heartless.  He  is  far, 
far  from  that,  I  know.  I  know  that  he  adores  me;  I 
know  that  he  suffers  because  I  am  going  away,  but  what 
troubles  me  is  that  I  can't  make  him  see  that  I  suffer,  too. 
I  can't  justify  myself  to  him.  He  doesn't  understand 
my  motives." 

"  Yes,  he  does,  Dolly ;  only,  as  I  said  before,  he  can't 
speak  of  it.  Trust  your  father's  penetration  and  his 
sense  of  justice.  He  knows  just  as  well  as  I  do  and  as 
you  do,  that  no  one  can  live  for  another,  no  one  can 
choose  happiness  for  another." 

"  Ah,  how  true  that  is,  Margaret !  Doesn't  it  seem 
strange  that  we  can  live  so  solitary  away  down  in  the 
depths  of  us,  and  no  one  suspect  how  it  goes  with  us  there, 
even  those  who  stand  nearest  to  us?  There  comes  the 
postman.  He's  smiling  and  holding  up  a  letter  for  you. 
I'll  go  now,  so  that  you  can  read  your  letter  in  peace. 
Thank  you  very  much  for  your  wise  talk,  Margaret. 
You  always  do  me  good." 

"  No,  Dolly,  dear,  don't  go  yet.  The  letter  is  from 
Dick.  He  is  my  only  correspondent.  He  may  have  a 
message  for  you.  He  was  very  much  interested  in  your 
going  into  hospital  work,  when  your  father  told  him 
about  it.  He  said  to  me  afterwards  that  you  were  a 
trump." 

"  Did  he  ?  "  said  Dolly  quietly. 

The  postman  touched  his  hat  to  Dolly  and  handed  the 
letter  to  Margaret,  with  the  words : 

"  This  is  the  time  that  I  know  I  am  always  welcome." 

"  You  certainly  are,"  replied  Margaret,  and  when  he 
turned  away,  she  opened  the  envelope,  still  smiling,  and 


202  THE  TRELOARS 

before  removing  the  letter,  said  in  fond  anticipating 
praise  of  its  contents : 

"  Dick  is  such  a  good  letter  writer.  Most  people's  let- 
ters are  just-  duplicates,  or  rather  multiplicates,  of  one 
another  with  no  change  but  the  date.  But  Dick's  are  as 
various  as  his  moods,  and  he  never  writes  when  he  has 
nothing  to  say." 

She  took  out  the  letter  and  opened  it.  In  a  moment  the 
loving,  smiling  face  was  white  and  horror  stricken,  and  a 
low  cry  escaped  her,  as  she  bowed  her  head. 

"Margaret!  What's  the  matter?  He  is  not  dead? 
No?" 

"  No,  no,  Dolly,"  groaned  Margaret ;  "  but  I  think  that 
I  could  better  bear  knowing  that  he  was  at  rest,  than 
that  this  should  have  happened  to  him ! " 

Dolly  took  the  letter  from  the  trembling  hand  extended 
to  her,  and  read  Dick's  announcement  of  his  passionate 
love  for  Nita  Normand,  and  his  resolve  to  marry  her. 
He  added  that  he  knew  how  hard  it  would  be  for  her  to 
accept  this  resolution  at  first,  but  that  he  trusted  unfal- 
teringly in  the  great  love  she  bore  him  to  forgive  him  any 
pain  he  might  temporarily  cause  her,  in  consideration  of 
the  fact  that  all  his  happiness  was  at  stake.  He  would 
bring  his  fiancee  with  him  on  the  next  visit  home,  and 
it  would  depend  on  Margaret's  wish,  how  soon  that  would 
be.  He  hoped  it  might  be  some  day,  in  the  following 
week. 

Dolly  was  trembling,  too,  and  her  flushed  face  betrayed 
her  emotion,  but  she  put  her  arms  about  Margaret's  neck 
and,  kissing  her  cheek,  said  bravely : 

"  Dear  Margaret,  that  isn't  so  dreadful.  Remember 
what  you  have  just  said  to  me.  We  can't  choose  happi- 
ness for  other  people.  We  must  let  them  be  happy  in 
their  own  way,  not  ours.  This  is  Dick's  way  of  being 
happy." 

"  O,  Dolly,  what  foolish  things  we  say  to  others  in  pain, 
not  knowing  their  folly  till  the  pain  comes  to  us!  This 
is  not  a  question  of  Dick's  happiness.  It  is  a  question  of 


THE  TRELOARS  203 

Dick's  ruin,  soul  and  body.  This  woman  is  vile:  I 
know  she  is,  and  he  is  blind  to  it  all,  in  this  delirous  mad- 
ness that  he  calls  love.  O,  Dolly,  Dolly,  my  heart  is 
broken!" 

"  Dear  Margaret,  don't  say  that.  Think  for  a  moment 
of  all  that  Dick  is.  He  couldn't  love  a  vile  woman.  You 
don't  mean  to  be  unjust.  I  know  you  too  well  for  that. 
You  will  think  it  all  over  to  yourself ;  you  will  see  it,  dif- 
ferently. You  can't  see  it  in  the  right  way,  now." 

"  No,  Dolly,"  sobbed  Margaret.  "  You  don't  know  it 
all.  You  don't  know  how  persistently  he  has  deceived 
me.  His  whole  character  is  changed  since  he  knew  this 
woman.  Home  doesn't  mean  anything  to  him,  any  more ; 
nor  do  any  of  us;  but  I  can't  talk  about  it  any  more.  I 
must  go  to  father.  Perhaps  he  can  do  something  about 
it." 

Dolly  turned  away,  and  then  Margaret  called  after  her : 

"Wait,  Dolly!" 

Dolly  went  back  to  the  gate.  Margaret's  lips  were 
quivering  and  tears  were  streaming  down  her  cheeks : 

"  Don't  love  anything  or  anybody  too  much,  Dolly. 
It  won't  turn  out  right." 

She  turned  away,  giving  Dolly  no  chance  to  reply,  and 
starting  homeward,  Dolly  summoned  all  her  courage  to 
the  rallying  point.  She  felt  Margaret's  pain  in  addition 
to  her  own,  and  Dick's  danger,  if  danger  there  were  in 
his  love  for  this  strange  woman,  and  because  she  would 
not  sink  under  the  weight  of  this  new  misery,  but  would 
carry  it  out  with  an  air  of  bravado,  even  to  herself,  she 
said  half  aloud,  all  alone  in  the  road,  trudging  along 
with  the  bundle  under  her  arm,  and  a  curious  little  twist 
in  her  face  to  keep  the  tears  from  mastering  her : 

"  I  don't  think  life's  a  very  good  thing,  sometimes !  It's 
just  a  howling  farce !  Very  well,  I'll  play  out  my  farcical 
part  till  it  turns  to  down-right  tragedy,  comedy,  melo- 
drama, or  just  plain  old  common  sense. 

"  What  a  ridiculous  little  fool  I  am,"  she  cried  emphatic- 
ally ;  "  but  there's  one  thing  I  shall  never  do.  I  won't 


204  THE  TRELOARS 

wear  my  heart  on  my  sleeve  for  daws  to  peck  at ;  and  I 
won't  peck  at  it  myself.  I'll  just  take  no  notice  of  it  and 
let  it  heal  up.  Work!  Work!  Work!  That  way 
growth  and  salvation  lie." 

She  was  apparently  so  merry  when  she  reached  home, 
that  her  father  thought  how  light  a  thing  a  girl's  heart  is 
to  be  moved  by  so  small  a  trifle  as  the  prettiness  of  a 
new  dress ;  but  she  did  not  give  him  much  time  to  ponder 
over  it,  for  she  challenged  him  to  a  game  of  croquet,  and 
in  that  wholesome  out-door  sport,  they  wiled  away  the 
morning,  and  had  to  be  called  three  or  four  times  to 
lunch  before  they  were  willing  to  relinquish  it. 

As  for  Margaret,  she  seemed  to  herself  to  have  passed 
in  a  moment  from  youth  to  old  age.  She  repeated  over 
and  over  to  herself,  "  How  could  he  lie  to  me  in  this  way ! 
How  could  he  deceive  me  so  grossly !  Is  it  possible  that 
I  mean  so  little  to  him,  I  who  have  given  my  life  to  him 
and  counted  it  my  crown  of  glory !  "  Then  with  the  piti- 
ful and  foolish  exaggeration  of  wounded  love  and  de- 
spair, she  accused  him  of  never  having  loved  her  at  all, 
of  caring  for  her  only  as  he  cared  for  a  comfortable  gar- 
ment that  use  had  made  easy  to  wear ;  and  she  fell  back 
into  the  bitter  refrain :  "  And  he  could  be  so  base  and 
cowardly  as  to  lie  to  me,  to  tell  me  that  he  would  never 
have  anything  to  do  with  her  again !  " 

She  leaned  her  head  against  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  crying 
bitterly,  emptying  her  sore,  bruised  heart  of  all  the  sor- 
row and  anxiety  which  had  been  accumulating  in  it  for 
weeks ;  and  when  the  first  storm  was  over  she  prayed 
fervently  for  help  and  strength  to  drink  this  bitter  cup 
of  humility  and  anguish  that  had  been  offered  to  her. 
She  asked  to  be  shown  wherein  she  had  failed  in  her 
duty.  She  accused  herself  of  having  loved  too  foolishly 
and  fondly  those  who  had  been  confided  to  her  care,  and 
of  having  forgotten  her  God  in  these  earthly  loves,  until 
He  had  receded  from  her  heart,  becoming  but  a  vague  ex- 
pression for  the  sum  of  life  and  energy  in  the  universe. 
She  divined  that  this  wretchedness  might  have  been  mer- 


THE  TRELOARS  205 

cifully  sent  to  her  to  recall  Him  again  to  her  as  the  great 
Father  of  us  all,  who  sees  not  unmoved  the  sparrow  fall 
to  the  ground,  and  in  whose  boundless,  all  embracing 
love,  our  poor  human  love  can  rest  unshaken  from  such 
storms  as  this.  Then  she  prayed  that  if  it  were  His  will, 
He  would  deal  mercifully  with  her  erring  brother,  open 
his  eyes  to  the  light,  and  restore  in  him  the  love  of  home 
and  the  sweet  affections  that  held  him  true  to  duty;  and 
such  power  is  there  in  ardent  faith,  springing  from  the 
deep  desire  and  need  of  the  soul,  that  the  peace  she 
prayed  for,  did,  in  some  measure,  descend  upon  her, 
calming  the  troubled  surface  of  the  waters,  so  that  when 
she  entered  the  house,  she  could  give  the  letter  to  her 
father  without  any  stormy  outbreak.  But  her  eyes  were 
red.  He  saw  that  she  had  been  weeping,  and  he  lifted 
his  brows  in  surprise,  as  he  took  the  letter,  asking : 

"What's  this?" 

"  You  will  see,  when  you  read  it." 

She  watched  him  as  he  read  it,  and  saw  the  color  rise 
to  the  roots  of  his  white  hair,  and  her  heart  yearned  to- 
wards him;  she  would  fain  have  spared  him  this  pain. 
But  having  read  it,  he  looked  at  her  quizzically. 

"Funny,  isn't  it?" 

"  Funny ! "  echoed  Margaret.    "  You  mean  tragic." 

"  No,  I  don't  mean  anything  of  the  sort.  There's  noth- 
ing at  all  tragic  in  it.  What  is  there  tragic  in  a  young 
man's  wanting  a  wife  and  a  home  of  his  own?  I  called 
it  funny,  because  of  the  remarkably  serious  tone  in  it,  as  if 
he  were  drawing  hard  breath,  and  bracing  himself  against 
our  displeasure ;  and  then  it  came  upon  me  so  suddenly. 
I  hadn't  any  inkling  of  it,  had  you?" 

"  Yes,  father,  I  had ;  and  I  taxed  Dick  with  my  fears 
the  last  time  he  was  here,  but  he  solemnly  assured  me  that 
there  was  nothing  in  it.  Then  you  don't  know  the  sort 
of  woman  he  has  chosen.  She  is  an  actress.  She  is  a 
great  deal  older  than  he.  They  haven't  a  thing  in  com- 
mon, except  this  mad  infatuation  of  the  moment,  of 
which  she  is  taking  advantage,  I  dare  say,  for  her  own 
private  interests." 


206  THE  TRELOARS 

"Nonsense!  Margaret;  don't  let  your  jealousy  obscure 
your  judgment.  An  actress  who  would  marry  Dick,  an 
obscure  young  journalist,  isn't  thinking  very  seriously  of 
her  own  pri^te  interests,  if  she  has  any  talent.  Is  this 
the  Miss  Fotheringay  we  were  joking  about?" 

"  Yes,  it's  that  actress  we  went  to  see  at  Dick's  request 
in  Ibsen's  Nora,  and  I  saw  quite  enough  of  her  to  be  able 
to  judge  coolly,  without  any  jealousy  whatever;  and  she 
is  by  no  means  the  sort  of  woman  that  I  should  choose 
for  Dick's  wife  and  my  sister." 

"  What  kind  of  woman  would  you  choose  for  Dick's 
wife  and  your  sister  ?  " 

"  Well,  first  of  all,  she  should  be  a  pure  woman,  a 
chaste  woman." 

Mr.  Treloar  shut  his  eyes  and  drew  his  lips  together 
before  replying: 

"  Well,  Margaret,  like  good  narrow  women  in  general, 
you  overstress  a  matter  of  temperament  at  the  expense  of 
a  score  of  other  qualities.  But  I  see  that  you  are  in  no 
mood  to  listen  to  reason,  to-day,  beclouded  as  you  are 
with  jealousies  and  fears.  This  letter  must  be  answered. 
Shall  I  do  it?  Shall  I  tell  him  that  we  shall  expect  him 
and  his  fiancee  on  Saturday  ?  Of  course,  you  know  that 
there  is  nothing  else  to  do." 

"  No,  there  is  nothing  else  to  do,"  moaned  Margaret  in 
despair.  "  Nothing  else  to  do !  I  had  hoped  you  might 
wish  to  reason  with  Dick  against  the  folly  and  madness  of 
this  step,  but  you  yourself  do  not  even  see  that  it  is  mad- 
ness and  folly." 

"  Of  course  I  don't.  I  am  not  perched  on  so  lofty  a 
vantage  ground  that  I  think  I  get  the  circumference  of 
the  earth  from  it.  I  see  my  own  horizon  line,  and  what 
concerns  me  in  it.  I  give  to  others  the  same  privilege." 

"  That  was  better  said,  father,  by  him  who  first  asked 
— *  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ? '  I  think  we  are  his 
keeper  in  so  far  that  what  we  know  to  be  his  harm,  we 
shall  not  conceal  from  him." 

"And  what  do  you   know?"  was  the  sharp  retort. 


THE  TRELOARS  207 

"  Now  answer  me  squarely.  Don't  answer  by  low  sus- 
picions, innuendoes,  and  guesses.  What  do  you  actually 
know  of  a  woman  whom  you  have  seen  but  once  in  the 
exercise  of  her  profession,  and  who,  measured  by  the 
enormous  risks  she  runs,  may  be,  even  if  she  has  fallen, 
a  far  better  woman  than  you  are,  sheltered  from  tempta- 
tion in  a  quiet  little  valley,  or  it  may  be  still  more  ef- 
fectually sheltered  from  temptation  by  a  matter  of  tem- 
perament? It  is  no  virtue  in  the  lamb  that  it  does  not 
devour  chickens  like  the  wolf.  It  can't  eat  them.  It  lives 
on  grass." 

"  Certainly  not,  father.  I  agree  wholly  with  your 
metaphor,  but  you  will  also  permit  me  to  carry  it  out  far- 
ther. We  will  admit  from  your  favorite  standpoint  of 
the  absolute,  and  the  eternal,  that  the  wolf  is  as  good  as 
the  lamb ;  but  from  the  standpoint  of  relativity  —  that  is, 
the  standpoint  of  human  life,  if  you  were  going  to  choose 
a  family  pet,  the  lamb  would  be  a  much  safer  one  around 
the  house  than  the  wolf.  Father,  the  trouble  with  you 
is,  that  while  you  are  knocking  your  head  against  the 
stars,  you  are  always  stumbling  over  and  trampling  on 
things  on  earth  that  mean  life  to  the  earth  dwellers.  The 
human  eye  is  not  so  constructed  that  it  can  look  con- 
tinually upward  and  downward  at  the  same  time.  You 
get  a  frightful  squint  when  you  try  it.  You  have  to 
mind  your  feet  as  well  as  your  head.  If  purity  of  life 
does  not  mean  self-mastery,  thoughtfulness  of  others, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  lofty  independence  of  others,  and 
freedom  in  the  largest,  most  beautiful  sense,  I  don't  think 
there  would  be  much  to  say  for  it.  But  it  does  mean  just 
that;  it  means  exquisite  freedom,  the  unclouded  vision, 
not  the  self -centered  look,  but  the  outward  look." 

"  Pish !  "  exclaimed  Treloar.  "  You  speak  as  a  blind 
man  does  of  colors." 

"  No,  father,  I  speak  like  one  who  has  been  temporarily 
blind,  but  to  whom  vision  is  restored.  In  my  foolish 
youth,  I  thought  that  love  was  sacred,  that  the  unreason- 
ing attraction  which  draws  men  and  women  together  was 


208  THE  TRELOARS 

an  instinctive  expression  of  mutual  fitness,  of  unchanging, 
unselfish  love  which  found  its  highest  development  in  the 
family.  I  know,  now,  that  it  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  That 
it  is  often  a  mere  appetite  of  the  body,  quickly  satisfied 
and  quickly  reawakened,  and  that  a  life-union  ought  to  be 
based  on  something  more  stable.  It  ought  to  be  based  on 
a  harmony  of  feeling  and  disposition,  on  the  consciousness 
that  the  two  souls  are  moving  in  the  same  direction,  that 
one  does  not  lag  behind  the  other,  nor  go  off  at  a  tangent ; 
and  what  harmony  can  there  possibly  be  between  this 
woman  whose  public  life  has  fixed  her  mind  on  applause, 
on  vain  show,  and  numberless  things  which  have  nothing 
in  common  with  the  humble  duties  of  family  life  —  and 
our  Dick,  young  in  soul  and  body,  soft  and  green  in  the 
ways  of  the  world,  but  strong  and  ripe  in  ideality,  hating 
as  you  do  the  confusion  and  anarchy  of  thought  which 
lead  to  all  these  hopeless,  wretched  hermaphroditic  things 
which  the  world  is  now  accepting  for  poetry,  and  art  — 
and  now,  poor  fellow !  he  is  caught  in  the  same  confusion 
of  ethical  standards  —  just  as  you  are,  father!  Always 
up  there  in  the  clouds,  priding  yourself  on  your  high 
altitude  and  your  broad  tolerance,  you  have  lost  the  power 
of  distinguishing  black  and  white,  on  the  earth  beneath 
you.  But,  I,  down  here,  where  my  vision  is  not  obscured, 
I  see  distinctly  the  difference  between  black  and  white. 
I  see  that  it  is  wrong  for  Dick  to  unite  himself  with  this 
woman.  At  whatever  cost  of  pain  or  anguish,  it  is  right 
for  him  to  break  off  with  her,  to  turn  himself  resolutely 
away  from  this  burning  temptation  and  fix  his  eyes  stead- 
ily again  on  his  task.  He  can't  serve  his  life-work  and 
serve  this  woman  at  the  same  time.  There  is  where  I 
firmly  stand." 

"  Yes,  with  your  feet  in  the  mud,  your  eyes  fixed  on  it, 
and  your  ears  set  back  like  a  mule !  Well,  that's  all  right. 
It  is  an  attitude  commensurate  with  your  vision.  Now, 
let's  see  if  we  can't  improve  on  it.  I  grant  that  so  far  as 
your  intention  goes,  you  are  sincerely  thinking  of  Dick's 
welfare." 


THE  TRELOARS  209 

"  Father !    As  if  there  could  be  any  doubt  of  that !  " 

"  No,  I  am  not  doubting  it ;  but  as  to  whether  you 
know  what  Dick's  welfare  is,  that's  another  question. 
Now,  I  am  just  as  much  interested  in  Dick's  welfare  as 
you  are,  and  when  I  think  he  is  endangering  it,  I  am  go- 
ing to  warn  him;  and  if  a  warning  isn't  effectual,  I  am 
going  to  do  all  in  my  power  to  prevent  him  from  hurting 
himself." 

"  O,  father,  I  knew  you  would  do  that !  " 

"  But  I  am  not  going  to  be  foolishly  rash  about  this 
thing.  It  isn't  in  the  interests  of  Dick's  welfare  that  he 
should  grow  up  a  Miss  Nancy.  You  have  seen  this 
woman,  I  haven't.  Let  her  come  to  us,  Saturday,  and 
I  shall  do  all  in  my  power  to  judge  her  impartially.  If 
she  is  one  of  the  vampire  type  that  shift  the  center  of  the 
world  to  themselves  and  suck  the  mental  and  moral 
strength  out  of  a  man,  I  shall  be  just  as  much  against  her 
as  you  are,  but  if " 

"  Father,  there  is  no  if  —  she  is  that  type." 

Treloar  laughed  again, 

"  O,  you  women !  you  women !  How  you  hate  one  an- 
other when  a  man  comes  between  you ! " 

"  No !  no !  "  protested  Margaret.  "  You  have  no  con- 
ception of  the  feeling  that  I  have,  because  you  have  no 
fear.  I  could  pass  out  of  Dick's  life,  not  without  pain, 
of  course,  because  I  am  human,  but  at  least  with  a  resigna- 
tion that  might  finally  vanquish  pain,  if  I  thought  that  the 
woman  who  was  to  take  my  place  could  keep  him  true 
to  the  level  of  what  is  best  in  him.  But  to  stand  by 
helpless,  hopeless;  to  see  the  fresh  dews  of  his  spirit 
dried  in  the  hot  wind  of  passion ;  to  watch  the  withering 
of  every  sweet  bud  of  promise  in  him  —  that,  is  to  me,  an 
agony  so  far  above  and  beyond  mere  hatred  and  jealousy 
that  to  confuse  them  with  it,  seems  to  me  not  so  much 
unjust  as  absurd.  I  can't  talk  it  over  with  you  any  more, 
father.  I  must  bear  it  alone." 

Margaret  left  the  room,  and  wandered  out  into  the 
garden  overwhelmed  with  a  suffocating  consciousness  of 


210  THE  TRELOARS 

isolation  in  her  grief.  Nothing  that  her  father  had  said 
had  weighed  an  iota  against  her  intuitive  conviction  that 
Dick  was  rushing  to  his  ruin ;  and  her  father's  blindness  to 
the  fact  seemed  to  her  a  horrible  complicity  in  the  cause 
of  it,  that  filled  her  with  terror  and  repulsion. 

To  win  and  to  hold  the  mastery  of  self,  that  must 
ever  remain  the  highest  achievement  of  human  activity, 
and  Dick  was  losing  it ;  he  was  no  longer  the  captain  of 
his  soul ;  he  was  drifting  on  a  wide  waste  of  waters,  care- 
less whither  he  was  going;  for  the  voice  of  the  siren  was 
in  his  ears.  "  No,  he  didn't  mean  to  lie  to  me,"  continued 
poor  Margaret,  thinking  half  aloud  to  herself,  for  her 
lips  were  moving  as  she  thought.  "  I  was  unjust  to  him 
at  first.  He  isn't  a  sneak ;  he  isn't  a  coward.  He  might 
have  married  her  secretly,  and  we  none  the  wiser ;  but  he 
couldn't  do  that.  He  must  have  meant  to  break  off  with 
her,  when  he  said  so  to  me ;  but  he  has  fallen  again  under 
her  power;  yet  he  is  frank  with  us,  and  there  is  still  a 
chance  to  save  him;  and  father  fails  me  in  this  crisis; 
He  fails  me  for  want  of  solid  convictions ! " 

Margaret  felt  herself  bereft  at  one  blow  of  the  two  be- 
ings who  were  the  center  of  her  life;  then,  with  the  deep 
humility  and  searching  introspection  of  the  truly  religious 
temperament,  she  arraigned  herself,  again,  before  the  God 
of  her  conscience,  and  found  herself  guilty  of  treason  to 
her  own  highest  convictions.  How  complacently  she  had 
drifted  with  her  father  on  the  shoreless  sea  of  doubt  and 
speculation,  exhilarated  with  the  abundance  of  movement, 
light,  air,  and  freedom. 

How  she  had  loved  him,  idealized  him,  shielded  him 
as  her  mother  had  done,  so  that  he  should  not  be  disturbed 
by  grosser  cares  in  his  life  of  contemplation  and  reverie ! 
She  had  classed  him  among  the  singing  birds  whose 
domain  is  the  air,  but  alas!  it  was  not  out  of  the  blue, 
but  from  very  close  to  the  earth,  that  his  voice  had  pierced 
her  ears  to-day. 

"  Margaret ! " 

"  Yes,  father." 


THE  TRELOARS  211 

"  Where  are  you  ?  " 

"  Out  here  in  the  garden." 

"  Will  you  come  in,  and  hear  my  letter,  or  shall  I  go 
out  there  to  you  ?  " 

"  I'll  be  with  you  in  a  minute,  father." 

She  hurried  in  to  the  kitchen,  bathed  her  eyes  with 
cold  water,  glanced  hastily  at  herself  in  the  square  mir- 
ror above  the  kitchen  sink,  then  went  into  the  library 
where  her  father  was  seated  in  an  arm-chair  by  the 
table.  He  glanced  at  her  kindly  and  said  quietly,  as  if 
wholly  unconscious  of  the  emotion  which  betrayed  itself 
in  her  face  and  manner: 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you'll  approve  of  what  I  have 
said  or  not,  but  this  is  what  it  seems  to  me  best  to  say. 
I  think  I've  done  it  rather  neatly : 

"Dear  Dick: 

"  The  wise  man  of  the  Proverbs  has  told  us  that '  whoso 
findeth  a  wife,  findeth  a  good  thing  and  obtaineth  favor  of 
the  Lord,'  in  view  of  which,  it  would  be  foolish  and  in- 
consistent in  us  to  withhold  our  favor.  Therefore,  we 
extend  to  you  and  yours  the  heartiest  congratulations  and 
the  most  cordial  welcome,  trusting  to  your  good  sense  not 
to  have  been  hoodwinked  by  Cupid  into  mistaking  a  poor 
thing  for  a  good  thing.  If  you  can  come  out  next  Sat- 
urday, we  shall  be  ready  with  the  fatted  calf. 
"  Affectionately  yours, 

"  PHILIP  TRELOAR." 

"  I  thought  you  could  add  your  signature  to  mine  and 
that  would  save  you  the  necessity  of  writing  anything,  if 
you  don't  feel  like  it.  It's  rather  short,  to  be  sure,  but 
we  can't  go  into  the  merits  of  the  case  with  him,  till  we 
have  seen  the  woman." 

"  I've  seen  her,"  was  Margaret's  laconic  answer,  as  she 
pushed  the  proffered  letter  away.  "  The  letter  is  yours, 
I  have  nothing  to  add  to  it." 

Treloar  colored,  and  knitted  his  brows  in  perplexity. 


212  THE  TRELOARS 

Margaret  in  a  rebellious  mood  was  such  an  astounding 
thing  to  him  that  he  could  scarcely  believe  his  eyes  and 
ears. 

"  Well,  Margaret,"  was  the  gentle  reply,  "  perhaps 
when  you  come  to  my  age,  you'll  know  that  you  only 
hurt  yourself  when  you  kick  against  the  pricks,  and  you'll 
learn  to  go  round  them.  You're  only  sowing  thorns  in 
a  bed  you'll  probably  have  to  lie  on.  You'd  better  pull 
'em  out,  and  sow  rose  petals.  They'll  lie  softer  and  smell 
sweeter.  Do  you  think  for  a  minute  that  if  I  saw  Dick 
about  to  make  a  stupendous  blunder,  I  shouldn't  try  to 
hold  him  back  with  all  the  might  I  had?  If  you  do,  you 
don't  know  your  father,  although  you've  lived  all  your 
life  with  him." 

"  Father,  would  you  really  do  that  ?  Would  you  really 
object  to  Dick's  marriage,  if  you  saw  that  it  wasn't  going 
to  mean  his  happiness  ?  " 

"I  certainly  should!" 

"  O,  thank  you !  thank  you,  father !  " 

Margaret  caught  her  father's  hand  with  an  hysterical 
sob  and  kissed  it  passionately.  He  stroked  her  head,  say- 
ing gently : 

"  My  poor  child,  how  unhappy  you  are  making  your- 
self over  a  mere  uncertainty.  The  wise  soldier  doesn't 
exhaust  his  strength  before  the  battle  is  on." 

"  But  the  battle  is  on,"  was  the  quick  reply.  "  It  has 
been  on  for  a  long  time  and  the  enemy  has  beaten  us,  so 
far.  But,  thank  God !  it  isn't  over  yet." 

"  Will  you  sign  the  letter,  Margaret  ?  " 

"  No,  I  can't  put  my  hand  where  my  heart  does  not 
go." 

"But  Dick  will  notice  it.  His  letter  was  written  to 
you.  He  will  see  that  you  do  not  approve  of  his  mar- 
riage." 

"  Must  I  tell  you  again  that  I  do  not  approve  of  it, 
father?  I  wish  Dick  to  notice  that." 


THE  TRELOARS  213 


CHAPTER  XXI 

DICK  did  notice  it  very  quickly,  and  would  rather  have 
had  one  reassuring  word  from  Margaret  than  a  volume 
from  his  father,  dear  as  his  father  was  to  him.  However, 
the  obsession  of  his  love  was  so  great  that  it  acted  as  a 
powerful  anaesthetic  to  the  pain  that  her  tacit  disapproval 
would  otherwise  have  given  him.  Besides,  he  was  so  sure 
of  her  goodness,  her  genuine  unwearying  self-sacrificing 
love  that  he  was  confident  that  her  displeasure  was  only 
temporary,  and  that  he  would  be  able  to  persuade  her  that 
he  was  acting  in  the  best  interests  of  his  happiness  and  his 
welfare.  As  far  as  he  himself  was  concerned  he  never 
doubted  it  for  a  moment.  He  felt  like  one  who  had  been 
reprieved  from  a  death  sentence,  and  to  whom  life  had  as- 
sumed a  new  value  and  significance. 

There  was  certainly  no  necessity  for  shutting  one's  eyes 
or  turning  them  away  to  preserve  the  idea  of  external 
charm  which  radiated  from  Nita  on  the  day  that  she  was 
to  accompany  Dick  home,  in  order  to  be  formally  pre- 
sented to  his  family.  She  had  put  on  a  perfectly-fitting, 
dark-brown  broadcloth  suit,  with  a  rolling  hat  to  match. 
She  wore  no  rouge,  but  her  red-lipped  sensitive  mouth 
and  sparkling  dark  eyes  gave  color  enough  to  her  face.. 

"  Do  I  look  like  an  actress  ?  "  she  asked  Dick,  as  they 
left  the  hotel  together  to  go  down  to  the  ferry.  It  was  a 
bright,  lovely  October  morning.  The  air  was  crisp  and 
invigorating.  Big,  round  masses  of  clouds  of  dazzling 
whiteness  were  lazily  floating  over  the  deep  blue  sky. 

"  Like  an  actress  ?  No,  you  look  like  the  portrait  of  a 
lady." 

"  Do  I  really,  Dick  ?  No,  let's  not  take  a  car.  Let's 
walk.  It  seems  so  good  to  be  out  in  the  air  again.  I  feel 
fifteen  years  old  to-day.  That's  the  lovely  thing  about 
an  illness,  when  it's  over.  It  heightens  all  the  cheap 
pleasures  that  we  scorn  when  we're  well,  like  walking, 
eating,  doing  things  for  one's  self.  Look  at  those  clouds, 


214  THE  TRELOARS 

Dick,  aren't  they  lovely?  When  I  was  a  child,  I  used  to 
fancy  myself  curled  up  in  them,  as  in  a  bed  of  soft 
feathers,  floating  away,  away  into  strange  new  worlds. 
And  next  to  clouds,  I  loved  shadows.  There  was  an  old 
oak  tree  at  home,  under  which  I  used  to  dance  with  the 
wind-driven,  leafy  shadows.  I  don't  know  what  it  was 
that  charmed  me  in  them ;  perhaps  their  fluttering,  change- 
ful intangibility.  Sometimes  I  think  I  have  been  play- 
ing with  clouds  and  shadows  all  my  life ;  and  then  I  won- 
der if  you,  too,  dear  Dick,  aren't  one  of  the  elusive 
shadows  floating  into  my  life  and  out  of  it  again." 

She  stopped  suddenly,  and  bit  her  lip.  She  was  about 
to  say,  "  like  all  the  others,"  but  Dick,  with  no  inkling  of 
that  ominous  resurrection  of  the  past  in  her  memory,  an- 
swered gaily : 

"  Do  I  look  like  a  shadow  ?    Like  a  cloud  ?  " 

"  No,  you  look  like  the  portrait  of  a  gentleman ;  and 
I  am  not  going  to  float  with  the  clouds,  nor  dance  with 
the  shadows  any  more.  Ah,  Dick,  it  is  so  good  to  feel 
myself  at  rest,  now,  in  that  big  warm  heart  of  yours !  " 

She  was  speaking  quite  sincerely.  In  a  momentous 
crisis  of  her  life  when  the  future  looked  dark  and  hope- 
less, Dick  seemed  to  her  to  have  been  sent  like  a  good 
angel  to  lead  her  into  paths  of  peace  and  pleasantness. 
She  had  been  entirely  frank  with  him,  not  foisting  her- 
self upon  him  for  what  she  was  not,  but  insisting  that  he 
must  know  her  exactly  as  she  was,  excusing  herself  in 
nothing,  exaggerating  rather  than  minimizing  her  faults 
and  follies.  The  warm,  generous  devotion  which  Dick 
lavished  upon  her  had  not  failed  her  a  moment,  and  she 
felt  herself  born  anew  to  him,  as  he  had  said  —  the  past 
dead  and  buried,  the  future  all  her  own. 

"  I  adore  you ! "  was  all  Dick's  answer  to  her  confes- 
sions. He  repeated  the  fond  expression,  now,  and  she 
said: 

"  Now,  if  I  can  only  make  the  family  look  at  me 
through  your  eyes.  I  am  just  a  wee  bit  afraid  of  your 
father,  you  know." 


THE  TRELOARS  215 

"  You  needn't  be." 

"  I  wouldn't  be,  if  he  weren't  a  philosopher." 

"  That  has  not  prevented  him  from  remaining  exceed- 
ingly human.  You'll  see." 

They  climbed  the  broad  stairway,  entered  the  waiting 
room,  passed  through  the  open  gates,  and  traversed  the 
long,  inclined  covered  passage-way  that  led  to  the  boat. 
They  seemed  to  be  moving  in  a  dream,  unconscious  of 
anything  but  themselves;  and  when  they  were  seated  to- 
gether on  the  upper  deck  in  the  prow  of  the  boat,  Dick 
leaned  close  to  Nita,  saying  in  a  low  voice : 

"  I  can't  believe  it,  I  have  to  touch  you  to  know  that 
you  are  a  reality  and  not  a  phantom;  for  since  knowing 
you,  I  have  never  crossed  the  bay  without  having  you  be- 
side me  in  fancy,  as  you  are  now." 

"  Then  you  have  always  felt  quite  sure  of  me?  " 

"  O,  no !  no !  I  didn't  mean  that.  I  never  really 
formed  to  myself  the  definite  idea  that  you  were  to  be 
my  wife.  That  seemed  to  be  one  of  those  impossible 
things  that  never  happen  to  a  man  outside  fairyland.  I 
only  meant  that  since  I  first  met  you,  you  have  never  been 
out  of  my  thoughts." 

"  By  the  way,  Dick,  what  is  the  name  of  that  beautiful 
girl  you  introduced  to  me,  that  night  I  played  Nora,  in 
Oakland?" 

"  Dolly  Parker." 

"  O,  yes,  Dolly  Parker.  She  struck  me  as  being  quite 
unusual,  not  at  all  the  crude,  common  street  type  one  sees 
so  often." 

"  She  isn't  of  that  type.  She  is  a  very  sweet  girl,  not 
one  of  your  over-knowing  kind." 

"  Dick,  I  wonder  you  never  fell  in  love  with  her." 

"  With  Dolly  Parker  ?  I  should  as  soon  have  thought 
of  falling  in  love  with  one  of  my  sisters.  Indeed,  I  never 
think  of  Dolly  except  in  that  way.  I  have  known  her 
since  she  was  a  little  child.  She  is  an  exquisite  girl,  but 
there  is  only  one  woman  who  can  speak  to  my  whole  heart, 
and  her  name  is  Nita  Normand." 


2i6  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Dick,  dear,  there  is  one  thing  I  want  to  tell  you.  My 
name  is  not  Nita  Normand.  It  is " 

"  No,  my  love,  don't  tell  me,  please"  hastily  interrupted 
Dick,  flushing  as  he  spoke,  "  the  old  name,  the  old  life, 
that  is  dead.  You  have  no  other  name  for  me  but  Nita 
Normand,  until  you  change  it  into  Nita  Treloar  and  that 
is  not  to  be  far  off  now.  Here  we  are." 

The  passengers  had  risen  ten  minutes  before  the  land- 
ing of  the  boat,  and  were  huddled  about  the  stairway 
and  its  entrance,  ready  to  be  the  first  to  step  on  the  gang- 
plank. When  the  boat  landed  they  pushed  and  jostled 
their  way  to  the  waiting  cars.  Dick  found  a  seat  for 
Nita  and  stood  beside  her  in  the  aisle,  hanging  on  to  a 
strap  as  they  hurried  over  the  long  railway  that  connects 
the  mainland  with  the  pier.  On  either  side  of  them,  ex- 
tended the  blue  waters  of  the  bay,  and  white  sea-gulls 
were  circling  in  the  air  above  them. 

"  This  always  reminds  me  of  the  approach  to  Venice," 
said  Nita;  then  she  could  have  bitten  her  tongue  for 
saying  it,  because  her  memories  of  that  city  of  the  sea 
were  not  pleasant  nor  creditable  ones,  and  she  had  prom- 
ised herself  that  the  past  was  to  lie  dead  and  buried. 
How  was  it  that  it  was  rising  to-day,  and  confronting  her 
at  every  minute,  refusing  to  lie  buried,  linking  itself, 
even  with  Dick's  devotion,  to  memories  that  were  treach- 
ery to  him?  If  she  could  really  blot  it  out! 

"  I  have  never  seen  Berkeley,"  she  hastened  to  add. 
"  Berkeley  the  Beautiful,  they  call  it,  don't  they  ?  I  have 
always  been  planning  to  see  the  Greek  Theater." 

"  Haven't  you  seen  the  Greek  Theater  yet  ?  "  asked  Dick 
in  astonishment.  "  That  is  one  of  our  show  places.  I 
must  get  father  to  drive  us  out  there,  before  we  go 
home.  He  is  coming  to  meet  us,  you  know." 

"  O,  do,  Dick,  I  should  so  much  like  to  see  it  first  with 
you." 

He  looked  down  at  her  with  loving  pride,  thrilled  with 
tender  gratitude  for  every  expression  of  hers  that  united 
him  with  her,  in  her  thoughts.  How  she  broadened  his 


THE  TRELOARS  217 

horizon;  and  his  thoughts  expanding  with  it  filled  him 
with  the  hope  of  a  rich  fertility  which  would  yield  fruits 
not  for  himself  alone,  but  for  all  mankind.  Poet! 
Prophet !  —  an  exquisite  line  of  Guyau's  flashed  through 
his  mind :  "  L'art,  c'est  de  la  tendresse."  Art  is  tender- 
ness. He  knew  it  indubitably.  Love  only  is  creative ;  all 
the  rest  is  but  make-work,  base  imitation,  surface  with- 
out soul  —  hollow,  wind-filled.  The  very  motion  and 
roar  of  the  cars,  usually  disagreeable  to  him,  changed  into 
rhythm  and  music.  The  long  stretch  of  low  frame 
houses,  the  stunted  palms,  dust-covered  and  languid;  the 
eucalyptus  trees,  sloughing  their  ragged  bark  and  strew- 
ing the  ground  with  their  long,  narrow,  slightly  curved, 
scimitar-pointed  leaves  —  all  these  familiar  sights  were  no 
longer  common  and  ugly,  but  infinitely  precious  and  beau- 
tiful to  him. 

"  What  a  perfect  day !  "  he  said  softly,  and  then  louder, 
as  the  car  stopped  at  one  of  the  stations.  "  There's 
father  waiting  for  us !  " 

"  Which  is  he  ? "  asked  Nita,  as  they  stepped  from  the 
car. 

"  The  man  in  gray.  See,  he  is  lifting  his  hat.  He  has 
seen  us." 

The  man  in  gray  was  looking  particularly  neat  and  at- 
tractive as  he  descended  from  his  carriage  with  the  agility 
of  a  much  younger  man  and  held  out  his  hand  to  Nita, 
whom  Dick  introduced  to  him.  His  clean-shaven  cheeks 
glowed  with  a  healthy  pink  hue,  and  his  gray  moustache 
was  carefully  waxed  and  twisted  into  a  sharp  tight  line 
at  the  ends.  His  linen  was  irreproachable,  and  his  white 
cravat  was  carefully  knotted.  In  spite  of  his  philo- 
sophical indifference  to  dress  and  his  decided  preference 
at  home  for  a  slouched  collar  and  baggy  trousers,  Philip 
Treloar  was  not  above  a  fastidious  deference  to  the  con- 
ventionalities in  public.  To-day,  he  was  particularly 
anxious  to  make  a  good  impression  upon  his  prospective 
daughter-in-law,  from  various  motives,  which,  perhaps, 
he  himself  could  not  have  analyzed,  had  he  tried.  It 


218  THE  TRELOARS 

may  be  that  the  most  irresistible  one  had  been  simply  the 
banal  instinctive  masculine  wish  not  to  appear  unattrac- 
tive to  an  attractive  woman.  That  she  was  attractive  he 
had  no  doubt.  Dick  was  not  a  young  man  to  fall  in  love 
with  a  woman  destitute  of  charm,  no  matter  how  much 
imagination  he  had  wherewith  to  beautify  the  woman  of 
his  choice.  He  was  right  in  his  conjecture.  No  sooner 
had  he  spoken  to  Nita  than  he  felt  the  subtle  inexpressible 
witchery  of  her  voice  and  manner. 

"  It  was  so  kind  of  you,  Mr.  Treloar,  to  come  to  meet 
us.  I  am  sure  I  am  very  grateful."  Common  enough 
words,  but  she  said  them  with  such  heartiness  and  such 
rich  inflections  that  they  seemed  very  uncommon,  and 
the  expression  of  a  large  responsive  nature  in  the  presence 
of  which  one  felt  instantly  at  home.  And  Treloar  felt 
at  home  with  her  at  once ;  he,  too,  had  always  known  her. 
She  was  das  Ewig-Weibliche. 

"  You're  a  lucky  dog,  sir !  "  he  said,  shaking  his  son's 
hand.  It  was  his  way  of  bestowing  the  paternal  blessing. 

"  You'll  sit  with  the  driver,  Dick,  and  I'll  take  the  back 
seat  with  the  young  lady." 

He  helped  Nita  into  her  place,  seated  himself  beside 
her,  carefully  spreading  a  lap-robe  over  her  dress  and 
tucking  it  in  at  the  side. 

"  Straight  home,  sir?"  asked  the  driver  of  Dick. 

"  No,  to  the  Greek  Theater,  first.  Father,  Nita  has 
never  seen  the  Greek  Theater,  and  I  promised  her  that 
we  should  show  it  to  her,  before  we  went  home." 

"  Certainly,  Dick ;  we'll  drive  right  over  there.  So  you 
haven't  seen  the  Greek  Theater?  I  am  glad  that  we  have 
something  so  lovely  to  show  you." 

Arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  wooded  hill  on  the  summit 
of  which  is  the  great  stone  amphitheater  and  stage  known 
as  the  Greek  Theater,  Nita  was  unaffectedly  enthusiastic 
about  the  beauty  of  the  situation. 

"  How  lovely  it  is,  this  great  forest  of  pines  and 
eucalyptus  trees!  I  am  so  glad  you  didn't  describe  it 
to  me,  Dick.  It  comes  to  me  so  fresh  and  new." 


THE  TRELOARS  219 

"  It's  a  tough  climb  up  the  hill,  though,"  said  Treloar, 
helping  her  out  of  the  carriage. 

"  But  I'm  a  good  walker,"  she  answered  gaily.  "  Ask 
Dick  if  I'm  not." 

When  they  reached  the  theater  and  stood  in  the  arena 
with  the  vast  circles  of  stone  seats,  tier  upon  tier,  around 
them,  inclosed  by  the  dark  green  summits  of  tall  eucalyp- 
tus trees,  and  roofed  by  the  blue  sky,  Nita  turned  to  the 
stage  with  an  irresistible  awakening  of  the  instincts  of  the 
actress.  A  vivid  color  mounted  to  her  cheeks,  and  she 
cried  out : 

"  I  must  try  my  voice  on  that  stage.  Will  you  wait 
here,  please,  and  see  if  you  can  hear  me  ?  " 

As  she  started  off,  Treloar  turned  to  his  son  saying: 

"  Isn't  that  natural  ?  The  sight  of  the  stage  stirs  her 
as  the  trumpet,  the  war-horse.  How  are  you  going  to 
tame  that  out  of  her  and  make  her  trot  quietly  in  do- 
mestic harness  ?  Have  you  thought  about  that,  Dick  ?  " 

"  No,  because  that  does  not  in  the  least  trouble  me.  I 
don't  want  her  turned  into  a  drudge.  I  want  her  just  as 
she  is  with  all  her  quick  impulses  and  her  rare  gifts.  She 
wouldn't  be  Nita  without  them." 

Dick  set  himself  squarely  upon  his  feet  and  looked  up 
at  the  stage  where  she  faced  them.  Was  it  the  actress 
trying  her  voice  in  the  passionate  lines  of  the  well  known 
sonnet,  or  was  it  the  woman  conscious  of  her  need  of 
indulgence,  trust,  and  hope  that  spoke  in  the  clear  voice 
ringing  out  to  them? 

"/  lift  my  heavy  heart  up  solemnly, 

As  once  Electro  her  sepulchral  urn, 

And  looking  in  thine  eyes,  I  overturn 

The  ashes  at  thy  feet.    Behold  and  see 

What  a  great  heap  of  grief  lay  hid  in  me 

And  how  the  red  wild  sparkles  dimly  burn 

Through  the  ashen  grayness.    If  thy  foot  in  scorn 

Could  tread  them  out  to  darkness  utterly, 

It  might  be  well  perhaps.    But  if  instead 

Thou  wait  beside  me  for  the  wind  to  blow 

The  gray  dust  up,  .  ,  .  those  laurels  on  thine  head 


220  THE  TRELOARS 

O  my  beloved,  will  not  shield  thee  so, 

That  none  of  all  the  fires  will  scorch  and  shred 

The  hair  beneath.    Stand  farther  off  then!    Go!" 


CHAPTER  XXII 

MEANWHILE,  Margaret,  waiting  at  home,  was  school- 
ing herself  to  meet  with  dignity,  this  bold  intruder  into 
the  family,  as  she  persisted  in  thinking  that  Nita  was. 
Her  father  just  as  persistently  refused  to  take  any  no- 
tice of  the  change  in  her  behavior,  but  Catherine  was  not 
so  indulgent,  and  on  this  day  of  Nita's  expected  arrival, 
having  asked  the  same  question  of  Margaret  several 
times  without  receiving  a  reply,  she  burst  out  impa- 
tiently ! 

"  You  get  on  my  nerves !  What's  the  matter  with 
you,  anyway  ?  Why  don't  you  say  something  ?  " 

Margaret,  who  was  arranging  some  flowers  in  a  glass 
bowl,  stopped  her  work  and  looked  calmly  at  her  sister 
before  replying : 

"What  shall  I  say?" 

"  Well,  in  the  first  place,  you  might  answer  my  ques- 
tion. Is  Dolly  coming  out,  to-day  ?  " 

"  No.  Her  father  says  that  she  doesn't  like  to  ask  a 
favor  yet,  as  she  has  been  so  short  a  time  at  the  hos- 
pital." 

"  I  don't  see  why.  She  isn't  getting  paid  for  her 
work." 

"  So  much  the  more  reason  for  doing  it  conscientiously. 
Will  you  please  take  hold  of  the  other  end  of  the  table? 
I  want  to  move  it  a  little  farther  this  way.  There !  that's 
enough,  thank  you." 

"  Are  you  going  to  be  like  that  all  day,  Margaret  ?  " 

"Like  what?" 

*'  Like  this." 

Catherine  stiffened  herself  in  the  primmest  of  atti- 
tudes, folded  her  hands,  and  drew  down  the  corners  of 
her  mouth  in  a  droll  expression  of  prudery. 


THE  TRELOARS  221 

Margaret  flushed  and  faintly  smiled. 

"Do  I  look  like  that?" 

"  Yes,  only  a  good  deal  worse,  for  your  face  is  nat- 
urally longer  than  mine,  so  that  it  can  look  prunier  and 
prismier,  and  now  that  you  have  got  that  new  sag  on 
it  at  the  corners  of  your  mouth,  you  are  really  funny. 
Why  don't  you  say  right  out  all  you  feel  and  be  done 
with  it?  You'll  be  in  a  much  more  amiable  humor  to 
meet  our  new  sister,  if  you  once  let  yourself  go.  You 
hate  her,  don't  you  ?  " 

The  harsh  crude  phrase  fell  painfully  on  Margaret's 
ear ;  her  lips  trembled,  but  she  said  nothing,  and  Catherine 
went  on: 

"Of  course,  you  won't  admit  it,  I  don't  expect  you 
to.  It's  against  your  principles  to  hate  anybody,  so  you'll 
give  your  feeling  some  other  fine  name,  like  solicitude 
about  Dick,  or  something  of  the  kind,  but  you  can't 
fool  me.  You  hate  this  woman,  because  she  isn't  like 
us.  I  like  her  the  better  for  it.  She  has  had  the  courage 
to  be  an  individual.  You  hate  her  because  you  have 
no  longer  the  first  place  in  Dick's  heart.  Are  you  so 
green  as  to  expect  always  to  keep  it  ?  " 

The  cruel  taunt  struck  Margaret  like  the  lash  of  a 
whip.  She  sank  into  a  chair,  and  covered  her  face  with 
her  hands.  In  a  moment,  Catherine  was  kneeling  on  the 
floor  beside  her. 

"  Don't  cry !  dear  Margaret,  and  do  forgive  me.  That 
was  so  nasty  of  me.  I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  you.  I 
only  meant  to  steel  you  against  this  frightful  disappoint- 
ment to  you.  I  know  how  it  pains  you ;  but  you  mustn't 
let  it  do  so.  You  must  be  brave;  you  must  look  at  the 
thing  sensibly.  It  isn't  so  dreadful  as  you  think,  and  it 
isn't  irrevocable,  even  if  Dick  marries  her.  Nobody 
thinks  of  love  any  more  as  an  unchangeable  emotion. 
You  catch  it  as  you  do  a  fever,  and  then  you  get  over  it, 
and  you  catch  it  again,  if  you're  exposed.  Why,  Clarence 
Raymond  and  I  have  made  a  promise  to  each  other,  that 
we  are  not  going  to  swear  unalterable  fidelity  to  one  an- 


222  THE  TRELOARS 

other.  That  would  be  ridiculous.  How  can  we  swear 
that,  and  be  sure  of  ourselves?  We  have  promised  each 
other  that  the  very  moment  we  begin  to  bore  each  other, 
and  to  care  for  somebody  else,  we're  going  to  quit,  be- 
cause love  is  the  holiest  thing  in  the  world,  and  we  must 
obey  its  call,  and  not " 

There  was  something  so  deliciously,  absurdly  naive 
in  Catherine's  assumption  of  superior  worldly  wisdom 
and  knowledge  of  life,  that  Margaret  dropped  her  hands 
and  broke  into  an  hysterical  laugh. 

"  That's  right,  Margaret !  "  exclaimed  Catherine,  cheer- 
fully. "Do  laugh,  like  a  good  girl,  and  don't  cry  any 
more.  It  really  isn't  worth  while.  See,  they'll  be  here 
in  an  hour,  and  we  mustn't  have  tear-stained  faces. 
What  are  you  going  to  wear?  You  look  so  lovely  in 
that  cream  serge  of  yours;  and  let  me  do  your  hair  and 
fluff  it  a  little  at  the  sides,  so  it  won't  look  prim." 

She  ran  her  fingers  caressingly  through  Margaret's  soft 
hair;  she  was  really  feeling  very  remorseful,  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  her  ethical  system  did  not  admit  of  re- 
morse. 

"  You  believe  I  love  you,  don't  you,  Margaret  ?  " 

"  Perhaps,  when  the  fever's  on,  Catherine." 

"  No,  this  isn't  a  fever.  This  is  another  kind  of  love. 
Margaret,  do  you  read  Ellen  Key's  books  ?  " 

"  I  don't  need  to  read  books  to  find  out  what  I  should 
put  into  my  heart,  or  what  is  already  in  it.  I  read 
my  own  heart,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  big  a  book  as  Ellen 
Key's,  though  it  shouldn't  speak  the  same  language." 

Catherine  saw  that  Margaret  was  in  no  mood,  now,  to 
be  converted  to  advanced  views  on  life.  She  was  lagging 
far  behind  on  the  road  to  progress,  and  Catherine  must 
abandon  her  and  go  on  alone  in  her  enlightenment.  Poor 
Margaret ! 

"  I  think  I  shall  wear  my  serge,  too.  O,  no  I  forgot, 
there  is  an  ugly  three-cornered  tear  in  the  skirt  where  I 
caught  it  in  the  auto  door,  the  other  day." 

"  I  have  mended  that  tear  so  that  you  can't  notice  it." 


THE  TRELOARS  223 

"Did  you,  Margaret?  You  darling!  Thanks  ever 
so  much !  " 

She  bent  over  Margaret  and  kissed  her  heartily. 

"  Now  remember,  dear,"  she  went  on,  "  if  you  want 
me  to  feel  that  your  Christian  philosophy  is  as  good  as 
my  pagan  one,  you'll  have  to  cheer  up  a  bit.  I'm  not 
going  to  be  convinced  by  long  faces.  How  sweet  the 
house  looks,  doesn't  it?  And  we  want  it  to  look  pretty 
for  the  newcomer." 

Catherine  had  at  last  touched  Margaret  in  the  right 
spot. 

When  Catherine  left  the  room,  she  knelt  beside  her 
bed  and  prayed  for  strength  and  courage  to  sustain  her 
through  the  day.  Her  heart  beat  fast;  her  face  burned, 
her  eyes  sparkled  when  she  descended  to  the  reception 
room;  but  her  thoughts  were  in  such  disorder,  that  she 
felt  as  if  she  were  an  automaton,  and  that  the  words 
which  fell  from  her  lips  had  no  echo  in  her  heart  and 
brain. 

Dick  put  his  arms  about  her  and  kissed  her  affection- 
ately, but  she  gave  him  no  kiss  in  return.  She  turned 
away  from  him  at  once  to  say  to  the  lovely  woman 
who  was  removing  her  gloves  and  hat  to  give  them  to 
Catherine : 

"  Did  you  find  the  ride  tiresome  ?  " 

"  On  the  contrary.  It  was  delightful.  I  had  no  idea 
how  beautiful  it  is  about  here.  Those  lovely  villas  with 
their  terraced  gardens  all  along  the  road  made  me  think 
of  Italy.  And  every  turn  in  the  road  opened  up  some 
new  unexpected  view  that  enchanted  me.  How  happy  you 
must  be  to  wake  up  every  morning  to  so  much  beauty." 

The  words  were  said  with  such  gracious  enthusiasm 
that  Margaret  would  have  been  a  woman  of  obstinate 
perversity  not  to  have  been  in  some  measure  responsive 
to  them.  She  replied  that  they  did  enjoy  it  very  much, 
but  she  feared  that  to  any  one  accustomed  to  the  stir 
and  variety  of  city  life,  the  unchanging  quiet  might  seem 
a  little  dull.  Then  after  seeing  that  Nita  was  comfort- 


224  THE  TRELOARS 

ably  seated  and  taken  up  by  the  attentions  of  the  others, 
she  excused  herself  on  the  pretext  that  she  must  look 
after  the  dinner,  and  slipped  away  into  the  kitchen. 

Long  afterwards,  when  she  voluntarily  recalled  this 
day,  she  had  a  confused  recollection  of  having  passed  it 
like  a  hunted  hare,  with  frightened  alert  pauses  and 
quick  darts  into  concealment,  and  that  when  its  long 
hours  were  over  and  night  had  at  last  closed  in,  she 
felt  as  if  some  spring  which  had  sustained  her  through 
the  day  had  broken,  and  that  she  was  incapable  of 
further  action,  or  further  thought. 

As  for  Nita,  the  last  adieux  over,  when  she  was  alone 
again  with  Dick  going  back  to  San  Francisco,  she,  too, 
felt  that  she  had  passed  the  day  under  an  unusual  strain. 

"  Ah ! "  she  said,  drawing  a  long  sigh,  "  do  take  me 
to  some  wicked  place  where  I  can  hear  people  swear! 
I  have  been  so  outrageously  good,  to-day !  But  do  tell 
me  first,  how  in  the  world  you  ever  managed  to  preserve 
your  youth,  in  that  highly  intellectual  family  of  yours  ?  " 

"Don't  you  like  them?" 

There  was  something  so  pathetically  appealing  in  poor 
Dick's  tone  —  and  something  in  the  consternation  of 
his  face  which  betrayed  how  she  had  wounded  him,  that 
Nita  repented  heartily  of  her  jocular  rudeness,  and  said 
quickly : 

"Of  course  I  do !  I  mean  to  like  everybody  and  every- 
thing that  belongs  to  you.  But  the  free  and  easy  gait  I 
have  acquired  in  Bohemia  makes  it  a  little  hard  for  me 
to  keep  step  with  a  non-Bohemian  one.  But  I'll  man- 
age it  little  by  little.  You  really  are  a  very  interesting 
family,  you  Treloars  —  very  clever,  all  of  you." 

"  Yes,  but  I  think  each  of  us  has  a  gait  of  his  own, 
and  that  you  will  not  be  required  to  keep  step  with  any- 
body. You  can  just  be  yourself,  Nita,  with  each  one  of 
us,  and  the  more  you  are  yourself,  the  better  we  shall 
like  you." 

"I  think  your  father  likes  me." 

"  I  am  sure  he  does.  He  told  me  that  you  were  the 
most  charming  and  brilliant  woman  he  ever  met." 


THE  TRELOARS  225 

"Did  he  really?  Please  tell  him  for  me  that  I  think 
he  has  an  extraordinary  amount  of  uncommon  sense." 

"  And  a  limited  quantity  of  the  other  kind?  " 

"  I  did  not  say  that.  I  really  don't  think  it.  He  seems 
very  versatile.  He  is  one  of  those  delightful  people  to 
whom  you  always  want  to  go  with  any  intellectual  in- 
terest you  have  —  a  fine  poem,  a  haunting  strain  of 
melody,  a  lovely  picture,  a  witty  saying.  I  like  such 
people  immensely.  They  double  your  pleasure  in  beau- 
tiful things  by  letting  you  share  it  with  them.  But  if 
one  had  a  great  sorrow " 

"  You  would  not  find  him  unsympathetic.  He  is  really 
very  kind  hearted;  but  if  you  needed  the  most  healing 
balm  of  human  sympathy,  you  would  go  to  my  sister  Mar- 
garet." 

"  O  Dick,  she  is  the  last  person  in  the  world  to  whom  I 
would  ever  go." 

"  No,  no,  Nita,  dear !  you  are  mistaken.  She  was  not 
herself  to-day.  I  know  it.  She  did  not  let  you  get 
acquainted  with  her.  She  was  even  distant  and  elusive 
with  me;  but  I  am  as  sure  of  her  love,  as  I  am  that 
the  stars  are  shining  yonder.  The  truth  is,  she  loves 
me  so  much  that  she  can't  bear  to  share  me  with  you. 
But  she'll  get  over  it.  She  does  not  know  yet  that  I  can 
love  you  both  without  in  the  least  ceasing  to  love  her,  as 
I  have  always  done." 

"  My  dear  boy."  Nita  put  her  hand  on  Dick's  and 
smiled  enigmatically.  "  That  is  exactly  where  your  sister 
is  a  great  deal  wiser  than  you  are.  She  knows  that  it  can 
never  again  be  quite  the  same  between  you,  since  I  came 
into  your  life.  I  feel  sorry  for  her,  really  I  do;  be- 
cause she  is  going  to  make  herself  so  very  wretched ;  but 
nothing  in  the  world  that  I  could  ever  do  would  make 
her  love  me  —  nothing!  I  want  you  to  know  that  right 
at  the  first,  Dick,  so  that  you  can  look  the  situation 
squarely  in  the  face,  and  give  me  up,  if  you  care  more 
for  your  sister's  happiness  than  mine." 

Dick  drew  closer  to  her  and  tightened  his  grasp  on 


226  THE  TRELOARS 

her  hand  till  it  pained  her.  One  of  the  cruel  fascina- 
tions which  she  had  for  him  was  that  he  was  never  quite 
sure  of  her. 

"  You  are  hurting  me,  Dick.  You  see  you  love  me 
best.  No!  your  sister  and  I  face  different  ways.  We 
never  can  meet.  We  might  do  each  other  good  if  we 
could.  She  might  teach  me  repose  —  rest  in  duty,  and 
I  might  teach  her  that  you  may  lace  yourself  so  tightly 
in  your  virtues  that  you  can't  breathe  freely,  and  so 
grow  anaemic  and  sickly.  As  for  your  sister,  Catherine, 
she  is  in  no  need  of  such  teaching.  I  should  like  to  put 
a  pair  of  moral  stays  on  her  to  keep  her  from  slopping 
over." 

"  Catherine  is  a  fool !  "  said  Dick  sharply. 

"  No,  she's  not  a  fool ;  she's  only  silly.  There's  a 
difference.  A  fool  is  hopeless;  a  fool  he  was  born,  and 
a  fool  he  will  die;  but  a  silly  person  may  have  a  sub- 
stratum of  sense  temporarily  obscured  by  some  illusion 
or  obsession.  Your  sister  is  a  victim  of  higher  edu- 
cation." 

"  How  wonderful  you  are,  Nita,  just  as  wise  as  you 
are  beautiful." 

"  No,  I'm  not,  Dick.  I  am  only  wise  intermittently, 
and  unfortunately,  not  always  at  the  right  time.  I  have 
lived  by  impulse  all  my  life.  I  wonder  if  I  can  learn 
now,  to  live  by  rule.  You  will  have  to  be  very  patient 
with  me.  I  have  a  thousand  faults  where  you  have 
one ;  and  I  am  not  patient  under  restrictions  and  censure, 
spoken  or  concealed.  That  is  why  I  must  not  see  too 
much  of  your  sister  Margaret.  We  should  goad  each 
other  beyond  endurance.  I  felt  the  greatest  temptation, 
to-day,  to  prick  her  by  little  covert,  innocent-appearing 
attacks  into  a  display  of  open  hostility ;  but  I  forbore  for 
your  sake  and  your  father's.  That  is  why  we  must  be 
married  in  our  own  home  and  not  under  her  roof.  Don't 
you  think  we'd  better  decide  upon  the  house  we  were 
looking  at  yesterday?  The  one  with  the  view  of  the  bay 
and  the  mountains  ?  " 


THE  TRELOARS  227 

Dick  assented  eagerly,  although  he  had  thought,  yes- 
terday, that  the  rent  was  high,  in  fact  quite  beyond 
what  his  income  warranted  him  in  paying.  But  he  had 
several  thousand  dollars  in  the  bank  and  there  was  no 
immediate  necessity  for  economy.  Besides,  he  shrank 
painfully  from  any  worldly-wise  dictates  of  prudence 
in  money  matters,  where  her  wishes  were  concerned.  He 
was  young  and  strong;  he  was  in  no  danger  yet  of  brain 
fagging.  He  could  double  his  work,  were  it  necessaryT 
He  was  responsible  for  her  abandonment  of  a  career  in 
which  fame  and  wealth  undoubtedly  awaited  her,  and 
he  would  be  a  sordid  ingrate  to  deny  her  that  beauty 
in  her  surroundings  which  her  nature  craved,  and  which 
she  might  have  procured  by  her  genius,  had  he  not  come 
into  her  life. 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

"Now,  therefore,  keep  thy  sorrow  to  thyself,  and 
bear  with  a  good  courage  that  which  hath  befallen  thee." 

MARGARET  had  lighted  on  these  lines  in  II  Esdras  one 
morning,  two  weeks  after  Nita's  visit,  and  it  seemed  to 
her  as  if  Providence  had  spoken  directly  to  her  in 
this  wise  admonition.  Who  was  she  that  she  should  ex- 
pect to  pass  through  life  without  sharing  the  common 
lot  of  sorrow?  Was  not  sorrow  the  passage  to  greater 
perfection?  Of  what  use  are  fine  aspirations  and  beau- 
tiful faiths  if  they  fail  us  when  we  need  them  most? 
Up !  up !  my  heart,  "  keep  thy  sorrow  to  thyself,  and 
bear  with  a  good  courage  that  which  hath  befallen  thee." 
Margaret  repeated  the  lines  till  the  strength  of  them 
penetrated  her,  and  her  burden  lightened.  She  went  di- 
rectly to  the  kitchen  and  said  to  Betty: 

"  Betty,  can  you  get  an  early  lunch  for  father  and 
me?  I  want  to  go  over  to  San  Francisco.  Don't  put 
yourself  to  much  trouble.  Make  a  little  fresh  coffee ;  fry 
us  an  egg  and  a  slice  of  ham,  and  open  a  fresh  pot  of 
marmalade.  That  will  be  enough." 


228  THE  TRELOARS 

Having  given  her  orders,  she  went  in  search  of  her 
father.  She  found  him  walking  in  the  garden,  and  called 
out: 

"  Father,  don't  you  want  to  go  into  the  city  with  me 
to  select  Dick's  wedding  present  ?  " 

It  was  the  first  time  that  she  had,  of  her  own  accord, 
mentioned  Dick's  name  since  his  letter  announcing  his 
engagement.  Treloar  had  been  thinking  of  a  wedding 
present,  too,  only  he  had  called  it  Nita's  instead  of  Dick's. 
He  had  been  very  sorry  to  notice  that  Margaret  continued 
her  disapproval  of  Nita,  therefore,  he  assented  with 
particular  pleasure  to  Margaret's  invitation.  He  had 
begun  to  fear  that  she  was  wanting  in  that  flexibility 
which  in  persons  as  well  as  in  steel  makes  a  superior 
quality  —  the  power  to  bend  without  breaking.  How- 
ever, he  had  too  much  tact  to  speak  of  his  pleasure  at 
her  return  to  her  old  self,  but  chatted  of  indifferent 
things,  of  the  necessity  of  cutting  the  grass  again;  of 
making  another  rose  bed  on  the  south  side  of  the  house ; 
of  putting  a  geranium  hedge  on  each  side  of  the  gravel 
path  which  led  to  the  chicken  yard;  of  his  preference 
for  the  bright  crimson  variety,  in  which  Margaret  agreed 
with  him. 

In  the  city,  he  stood  with  her  before  the  artistically 
draped  show  windows  and  looked  at  all  the  feminine 
finery  with  a  docility  that  admirably  covered  his  unspeak- 
able contempt  for  it.  It  was  his  way  of  rewarding  her 
for  being  a  good  girl  and  coming  to  her  senses.  When 
it  came  to  selecting  the  present,  however,  and  Mar- 
garet expressed  the  wish  to  buy  a  handsome  writing  desk, 
he  demurred  on  the  score  of  its  being  too  exclusively 
Dick's  present,  and  they  finally  compromised  on  a  very 
handsome  solid  oak  library  table  which  Margaret  was 
to  furnish  with  sundry  accessories,  necessary  to  the  com- 
fort of  a  writer.  For  that  purpose  they  went  into  a 
book  shop,  and  after  making  their  purchases  Margaret's 
attention  was  attracted  by  a  modest  little  volume  in  a 
brown  cover,  entitled  Comfort  Found  in  Good  Old  Books. 


THE  TRELOARS  229 

It  was  beautifully  illustrated  with  soft-toned  reproduc- 
tions of  old  book-pages  and  portraits  of  famous  old 
authors,  harmonizing  in  color  with  the  paper  of  the  text 
which  had  a  touch  of  brown  in  it.  Margaret  looked  over 
the  introduction,  which  concluded  with  the  following  sen- 
tence : 

"  Even  the  sphinx  is  not  so  enduring  as  a  great  book 
written  in  the  heart's  blood  of  a  man  or  woman  who 
has  sounded  the  deeps  of  sorrow,  only  to  rise  up  full 
of  courage  and  faith  in  human  nature." 

For  the  second  time  to-day,  an  unknown  writer  had 
spoken  to  her  out  of  the  depths  of  human  experience, 
and  had  held  out  a  hand  with  a  warm  human  grip 
in  it. 

"  I  will  take  this  book,"  she  said. 

"  What  are  you  buying  ? "  asked  her  father,  putting 
down  some  volumes  which  he  had  been  looking  over. 
Margaret  showed  him  the  book. 

"  Ah  yes.  Fitch  of  the  Chronicle.  He  does  very  good 
work.  I  wonder  if  Dick  knows  him.  He  lost  a  son,  a 
brilliant  young  fellow,  some  time  ago.  All  his  friends 
thought  he  would  go  to  pieces  under  it,  but  he  pulled 
himself  together,  finding  consolation  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  ages,  as  it  is  spoken  in  the  great  books.  I  wonder 
from  how  many  books  of  the  present  day  he  could  have 
drawn  comfort.  Well,  are  you  ready  to  go?  " 

"  Yes,  I  am  ready." 

"  Wouldn't  you  like  to  call  on  Nita,  while  we  are 
over  here  ?  I  think  you  ought  to." 

Margaret  flushed.  She  had  not  courage  enough  for 
that. 

"  I  can't  go  to-day,  father.  I  must  get  home,  and 
help  Betty  with  the  dinner.  The  doctor  is  coming  over 
to-night,  you  know." 

He  did  not  tell  her  that  he  knew  very  well  her  assist- 
ance was  not  at  all  necessary,  and  he  did  not  urge  her 
to  go  against  her  will;  but  he  did  some  very  energetic 
thinking  about  the  cursed  narrowness  of  women,  and  their 


230  THE  TRELOARS 

petty  hostility  to  one  another.  Neither  did  he  tell  her  that 
he  himself  had  called  on  Nita  the  last  time  he  was  in  the 
city. 

• 

Dick  and  Nita  were  married  at  high  noon,  one  bright 
day  towards  the  end  of  October.  They  were  married  in 
their  new  home,  the  picturesque  cottage  fronting  the 
bay  on  the  outskirts  of  San  Francisco.  Dick  was  es- 
pecially jubilant,  because  it  was  a  sunny  day,  and  the 
season  was  approaching  when  rainy  days. are  frequent. 

"  Happy  the  bride  that  the  sun  shines  on !  "  was  his 
first  greeting  to  Nita  on  that  memorable  day,  "  the  bride- 
groom can  be  happy  in  any  kind  of  weather." 

"  The  bride,  too,  if  she's  the  right  sort,"  answered  Nita, 
seating  herself  beside  him  in  the  carriage  which  was 
to  drive  them  to  their  cottage.  All  the  wedding  guests 
were  to  be  there  waiting  for  them.  Margaret,  at  the 
last  moment,  had  sent  word  to  Dick  that  she  was  too  ill 
and  weak  to  be  present,  but  that  she  was  sending  Betty 
over  with  a  basket  of  the  loveliest  flowers  she  could  get, 
and  he  was  to  take  them  as  emblematic  of  the  good  wishes 
accompanying  them.  He  would  find  at  the  house  her 
wedding  present  which  she  hoped  would  be  a  constant 
reminder  to  him  that  she  trusted  he  would  yet  do  good 
work  with  his  pen.  Nita  who  had  anticipated  this  ill- 
ness of  Margaret's  and  did  not  believe  in  it,  wisely  made 
no  comment  on  it;  but  to  do  Margaret  justice,  she  had 
really  felt  physically  unable  to  support  the  excitement 
of  the  day.  She  had  put  all  her  strength  into  the  mes- 
sage to  Dick,  and  he  gratefully  received  it,  incapable  of 
feeling  anything  but  gratitude  on  this  day  of  days. 

After  his  first  greeting  to  Nita  and  her  answer,  Dick 
settled  back  in  the  seat  beside  her,  his  hand  upon  hers 
unable  to  speak  further.  He  had  a  singular  feeling 
of  the  unreality  of  it  all,  as  if  he  were  but  half  awake, 
and  the  lovely  dream  would  vanish  if  he  were  to  think 
vigorously  or  much  bestir  himself.  He  wished  they 
might  go  on  and  on  forever,  just  as  they  were,  with  this 


THE  TRELOARS  231 

gentle  motion  of  the  carriage,  the  sweet  play  of  light  and 
air  about  them,  the  hum  of  the  crowd  entirely  softened 
to  his  senses,  as  if  it  came  from  afar. 

He  did  not  like  to  think  of  the  little  company  as- 
sembled at  the  house,  the  dinner  that  would  be  ready  for 
them  after  the  ceremony,  and  their  two  hours'  drive  in 
Golden  Gate  Park,  hard  by,  which  was  to  be  their  wed- 
ding journey.  It  all  seemed  child's  play,  not  at  all  re- 
lated to  the  exquisite  seriousness  of  the  hour.  But  the 
ordeal  had  to  be  endured.  Arrived  at  the  home,  he  had 
to  listen  with  a  forced  attention  to  Catherine's  vivacious 
account  of  Betty's  experience  with  the  two  Japanese  boys 
who  were  to  help  her  with  getting  the  dinner  ready,  and 
with  the  service  at  the  table;  how  she  persistently  judged 
their  capacity  by  their  mistake  in  addressing  her  as  "  Sir," 
and  believed  that  she  could  get  along  much  better  with- 
out them.  He  had  to  use  his  wits  to  keep  Max  and  his 
father  from  entering  into  an  interminable  discussion ;  for 
at  Nita's  urgent  request,  Max  was  one  of  the  wedding 
guests,  and  found  occasion  during  the  course  of  the  day 
to  ask  her  to  use  her  influence  with  Dick  to  review  the 
Dawn. 

He  had  to  thank  Dolly  and  her  father  for  their  hand- 
some gifts  and  for  their  presence  at  his  wedding,  assur- 
ing them  that  if  they  had  not  come,  he  would  have  missed 
their  friendly  faces  more  than  he  could  tell.  He  kindly 
enquired  of  Dolly  how  she  liked  her  hospital  experiences, 
and  told  her  that  if  he  were  ever  ill,  he  would  want  no 
other  nurse.  He  had  to  listen  to  his  prospective  brother- 
in-law,  the  colorless,  mild-eyed,  blonde  Clarence  Ray- 
mond, when  he  broke  into  a  subdued  admiration  for 
the  site  of  his  new  home,  and  the  home  itself  which  was 
unusually  beautiful.  He  wished  he  could  duplicate  it  for 
himself  and  Catherine. 

He  had  to  introduce  the  clergyman  to  everybody  and 
see  that  he  felt  at  home.  He  had  to  make  a  pretense 
at  eating  and  enjoying  the  rich  dinner  prepared  for  his 
guests. 


232  THE  TRELOARS 

There  was  only  one  thing  that  he  did  not  have  to  do. 
He  did  not  have  to  sustain  the  courage  of  a  timorous  and 
shrinking  bride,  nor  attempt  to  bring  out  to  public  view 
those  charms  of  mind  and  manner  which  had  seduced 
him  in  private.  Nita  was  admirable.  She  was  not  only 
beautiful  in  her  simple,  clinging  gown  of  soft,  white, 
lusterless  silk,  but  she  was  beautiful  in  the  easy  and 
charming  way  in  which  she  made  every  one  feel  himself 
at  his  best,  which  is  not  entirely  the  same  thing  as  mak- 
ing him  feel  himself  at  home.  No  one  parted  from  her 
that  day,  regretting  anything  he  had  said  or  done,  or 
feeling  that  he  had  left  anything  unsaid  or  undone  that 
would  have  contributed  to  the  general  delight. 

When  the  day  had  ended  at  last,  and  they  were  alone 
with  their  happiness,  Dick  turned  to  her,  holding  out  his 
two  hands  and  drawing  her  close  to  him,  while  he  kissed 
her  and  fondly  stroked  her  hair,  he  said : 

"  How  proud  I  was  of  you,  to-day !  " 

"  Were  you  really,  Dick  ?  Yet  it  was  a  very  trying 
day  to  me.  I  felt  as  if  I  were  on  the  stage,  going  through 
a  new  part  which  I  had  not  rehearsed,  and  might  blunder 
at  any  moment." 

"  You  could  not  blunder,  if  you  tried.  What  might  be 
a  blunder  in  the  rest  of  us  would  only  be  a  new  charm  in 
you.  '  Thou  mak'st  faults  graces  that  to  thee  resort.' " 

"  Ah,  my  young  poet,  if  you  can  only  keep  on  trans- 
lating all  my  faults  into  graces,  what  a  charming  thing 
it  will  be." 

"  I  shall  not  fail  in  my  translations,  and,  you,  my  love, 
will  you  keep  on  trying  to  people  this  quiet  place  with 
sweet  thoughts  of  me,  so  that  it  won't  weary  you  ?  " 

"Weary  me,  Dick?  If  you  only  knew  how  glad  I 
am  to  rest !  If  you  only  knew  how  tired  I  was  of  having 
no  settled  place  to  call  my  very  own,  of  having  always  to 
live  in  strange  hotels  and  railway  compartments,  saying 
always  the  same  flat  things  to  the  same  flat  people  —  if 
you  knew  how  inexpressibly  tired  I  was  of  the  petty 
meannesses  of  the  human  heart,  its  ignoble  jealousies,  its 


THE  TRELOARS  233 

cold  egotisms,  its  impossible  ambitions  —  you  would  know 
what  a  heaven  this  lovely  place  seems  to  me.  Why,  Dick, 
I  have  never  had  time  to  get  acquainted  with  myself. 
My  life  has  been  like  a  cinematograph,  a  perpetual  change 
of  scene  and  faces.  I  really  don't  know  what  sort  of 
woman  I  am,  any  more.  I  am  taking  myself  on  trust 
just  now,  I  want  to  see  if  I  can  live  up  to  your  heart's 
ideal  of  me.  It  is  a  new  and  tonic  experience.  I  like  it 
immensely.  It  makes  me  very  happy,  happier  than  I  have 
ever  been  in  all  my  life." 

She  really  believed  what  she  said,  and  Dick  believed 
her,  too. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

DOLLY  PARKER  and  her  father,  having  separated  from 
the  rest  of  the  little  wedding  party  at  the  ferry,  were 
leisurely  making  their  way  to  the  hospital  in  Oakland 
where  Dolly  was  receiving  her  training.  Now,  to  tell 
the  literal  truth,  Dolly  was  not  returning  to  her  duties 
with  the  cheerfulness  that  implies  a  delight  in  them.  The 
massive  red  brick  hospital  with  its  many  windows  flash- 
ing a  bright  light  into  the  darkness  had  never  looked  so 
comfortless  and  repellent  to  her  as  it  did  to-night.  Her 
father  accompanied  her  to  the  door,  but  would  not  go  in, 
and  Dolly  lingering  beside  him  was  wishing  with  all  her 
heart  that  he  would  set  his  foot  down  peremptorily,  and 
say: 

"  Now,  Dolly,  we've  had  enough  of  this.  I  want  you 
to  quit  this  fooling  and  come  home  with  me." 

Dolly's  frame  of  mind  was  something  akin  to  that  of 
the  naughty  boy  who,  having  in  a  pet  left  his  good 
home  and  indulgent  father  and  mother  to  make  his  own 
way  in  the  world,  suddenly  discovers  that  the  world  does 
not  owe  him  a  living. 

"  Daddy,"  she  began,  twisting  the  button  of  his  over- 
coat as  she  spoke,  "  I  am  getting  the  awful  habit  of 


234  THE  TRELOARS 

viewing  humanity  in  a  bony  light  a  la  Mr.  Venus.  I 
am  getting  all  the  fluffy  nonsense  rubbed  off.  You  would 
not  like  me  entirely  destitute  of  fluffiness,  would  you?  " 

She  hoped  that  he  would  reply  that  he  liked  her 
just  as  she  was,  but  he  very  wisely  did  nothing  of  the 
sort  though  he  was  secretly  delighted  to  know  that  he 
was  in  no  danger  of  losing  her  entirely.  So  he  answered 
very  deliberately: 

"  The  first  month  or  two  are  very  hard,  Dolly,  I  know 
it.  You  must  expect  that.  You  are  soft,  like  a  young 
colt  that  has  been  running  in  pasture  all  its  life,  and 
has  just  been  put  into  harness.  The  harness  galls  it 
everywhere  it  touches  the  skin;  but  in  a  little  while, 
the  newness  wears  off  and  it  is  not  conscious  any  longer 
of  a  buckle  or  a  strap." 

"  It  is  not  the  harness  that  bothers  me,  now.  It  did 
at  first,  of  course.  I  never  told  you  that  the  first  week, 
I  lay  one  night  with  my  blistered  hands  in  a  basin  of  water 
to  take  out  the  burning  sting." 

"  That  was  not  the  best  thing  to  do." 

"  No,  I  know  it  wasn't,  now ;  but,  then  I  did  not  know 
what  else  to  do,  and  I  wasn't  going  to  whine  and  com- 
plain and  ask  what  to  do  for  a  blister,  when  people 
under  the  same  roof  with  me  had  hideous  ulcers  and 
gaping  wounds  that  refused  to  heal:  Ugh!  I  don't 
say  I  didn't  cry  on  account  of  the  smart,  and  because  I 
was  so  tired,  but  nobody  saw  me  cry." 

"  That's  right,  Dolly,  nobody  should  see  you  cry." 

"  Now,  you  see  that  I  am  not  complaining  of  the 
harness.  The  blisters  on  my  hands  have  changed  to 
callous  places.  I  don't  tire  so  easily  any  more.  I  can 
rise  at  half-past  five  and  wake  myself  entirely  up  while 
dressing,  and  I  can  dress  in  a  quarter  of  the  time  it 
used  to  take  me.  And  I  can  take  a  bath  in  a  bowl." 

"  You're  getting  a  fine  training  for  making  a  comfort- 
able traveling  companion,  Dolly." 

"  Yes,  I  have  learned  the  perfect  idiocy  of  f ussiness. 
We  have  a  patient  that  never  stops  ringing  her  bell,  and 


THE  TRELOARS  235 

when  you  go  in,  she  is  always  wanting  what  she  can't 
have,  and  objecting  to  what  she  can  have;  but  I've  just 
got  so  that  that  doesn't  bother  me  any  more  than  the 
sweeping,  and  dusting,  and  slop-emptying.  But " 

Dolly  stopped,  and  heaved  a  long-drawn  sigh. 

"Well,  what  does  trouble  you,  my  child?" 

"  Daddy,  I  can't  bear  to  see  pain,  pain,  pain,  nothing 
but  pain.  A  little  child  very  ill  of  a  fever,  cried  all  day 
long  yesterday,  '  mamma!  mamma!  mamma! '  till  its  poor 
little  voice  hoarsened  to  a  thread.  It  broke  my  heart. 
I  can't  bear  it.  I  can  still  hear  the  sound  of  its  voice  in 
my  ears." 

Dolly  involuntarily  put  her  hands  to  her  ears,  as  if  she 
were  shutting  out  the  sound. 

"  Yes,  but  you'll  get  used  to  all  that,  too,  Dolly. 
Your  heart  will  grow  a  little  callous  like  your  hands,  and 
still  remain  very  soft  underneath  the  surface,  I  hope.  We 
all  have  to  get  just  hard  enough  to  bear  the  touch  of 
pain  without  weakening  under  it.  The  most  skillful  op- 
erator I  know,  the  coolest,  clearest  head,  fainted  at  his 
first  sight  of  the  dissection  table;  but  his  wish  to  be  of 
service  to  those  who  suffer,  led  him  to  persist  until  he 
conquered  his  weakness.  I  should  like  you  to  stick  it 
out  a  year,  anyway,  Dolly.  You  know  I  wasn't  much  in 
favor  of  your  coming  here,  at  first.  I  had  selfishly  got 
used  to  having  you  around  me  at  home.  But  I  see,  now, 
that  you  were  wiser  than  I.  Every  woman  ought  to 
have  some  training  of  this  kind.  It  will  rid  her,  not  only 
of  a  lot  of  fluffy  nonsense,  as  you  call  it,  but  of  a  lot  of 
dense  ignorance  of  human  nature  which  leads  so  many 
idle  yawning  women  into  silly  sentimentalisms  and  hope- 
less quixotisms  of  social  reform.  And,  Dolly,  there's  an- 
other thing  I'd  like  to  speak  to  you  about.  You  are 
young,  good-looking,  attractive." 

"  Somebody  told  me  the  other  day  that  I  was  called 
the  belle  of  the  hospital.  Do  you  like  that,  Daddy?" 

"  No,  I  don't  like  it,"  he  answered  severely.  "  I  think 
it's  silly,  and  if  I  thought  such  a  thing  as  that  would  turn 
your  head " 


\ 


236  THE  TRELOARS 

"  You'd  take  me  right  home,  to-night,  with  you  wouldn't 
you  Daddy?" 

"  No,  I  wouldn't.  I'd  be  too  much  ashamed  of  you 
to  get  any  comfort  out  of  having  you  around  me." 

Dolly  burst  out  laughing. 

"  No,  I  am  serious,  Dolly.  I  want  you  to  listen  to 
me.  I've  lived.  I  know  life.  I  know  men.  I  am  one 
of  them.  All  men  are  as  normally  attracted  to  pretty 
young  women  as  iron  filings  to  a  magnet." 

"  As  the  moth  to  the  candle,  Daddy.  That  is  the 
simile  which  time  has  sanctified." 

"  Yes,  but  it  does  not  suit  the  case ;  because  the  moth 
dies  in  the  flame  and  the  candle  burns  on.  It  would 
be  entirely  correct  if  the  candle  went  out,  and  the  moth 
flew  away  unsinged,  which  is  what  really  happens  with 
the  male  moth  and  the  female  candle,  nine  times  out  of 
ten.  The  tragedy  of  these  emotional  affairs  is  that  a 
woman  mistakes  a  two-penny  form  of  excitement  for  a 
valuable,  permanent  affection,  and  her  vanity  makes  her 
believe  that  she  is  one  chosen  out  of  many,  because  of 
her  superior  charms,  instead  of  being  only  one  of  many 
whom  chance  makes  it  convenient  for  him  to  prefer  tem- 
porarily." 

"No  more  but  so?"  said  Dolly  with  mock  Ophelian 
insistence. 

"  No  more  but  so ! "  repeated  her  father,  not  relishing 
the  mockery.  "  I  wish  you  could  hear  the  light,  banter- 
ing, silly,  conceited  way  in  which  men,  young  and  old, 
speak  to  each  other  of  these  affairs.  It  would  heartily 
disgust  you,  and  make  you  resolve  never  to  lend  your- 
self to  be  a  low  jest  to  any  of  them.  A  young  woman  in 
your  position  must  be  doubly  careful,  surrounded  as  she 
is  by  so  many  subtle  appeals  to  her  sympathy  and  her 
vanity.  You  will  hear  serious  things  spoken  of  lightly. 
It  is  a  sort  of  fad  among  would-be  smart  people,  now- 
adays, to  mock  at  what  used  to  be  reverenced,  and  to 
boast  of  their  vices  and  vulgarity  as  a  sort  of  superior 
knowingness.  It  is  a  poor,  cheap,  vulgar  sort  of  knowl- 


THE  TRELOARS  237 

edge,  that  can  be  found  in  a  much  completer  form  in 
every  prison  and  penitentiary  in  the  country.  Never  for- 
get this,  Dolly:  Civilization  is  only  the  blossoming  of 
human  experience,  into  the  finest  morality ;  and  purity  is 
one  of  the  blossoms.  There  is  one  woman  whose  mem- 
ory I  want  you  to  keep  near  you.  Never  listen  to  any- 
thing or  do  anything  that  you  would  not  listen  to  or  do 
in  the  presence  of  Margaret  Treloar." 

"  Dear  Margaret !  "  exclaimed  Dolly.  "  She  is  a  good 
woman.  Why  wasn't  she  at  the  wedding  to-day?  Is 
she  really  sick?  I  know  she  is  heart-broken  over  Dick's 
marriage.  But  don't  you  think  she'll  ever  get  over  it  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,  Dolly.  She  is  not  one  of  the  April 
women  who  can  smile  and  cry  in  an  hour.  She  is 
deeply  hurt.  Time  will  answer  that  question." 

"What  do  you  really  think  of  Dick's  wife,  father?" 

"  That  she  is  a  fascinating  woman  who  needs  an  audi- 
ence before  whom  she  can  exercise  her  gifts.  For  that 
reason,  she  is  about  as  dangerous  a  domestic  pet  as  a 
half-tamed  tiger.  However,  Dick  may  succeed  in  tam- 
ing her  wholly.  We'll  have  to  leave  that  to  time,  too." 

"  Dick's  father  seems  to  think  she's  perfect." 

"  Humph !  Poor  old  Phil  is  hopelessly  romantic.  He 
is  a  spiritual  adventurer,  capable  of  descending  into  hell 
with  a  brand-new  argument  to  induce  the  devil  to  put 
out  his  fires,  and  believing  that  he  succeeded  if  he  came 
back  with  his  wings  only  slightly  singed.  Phil  doesn't 
recognize  any  spurious  forms  of  love.  It's  all  the  genu- 
ine article  with  him,  and  sacred  because  '  God  is  love ! ' 
As  for  me,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  devil  has  a 
very  flourishing  monopoly  of  most  kinds  of  it.  Now,  my 
girl,  it's  getting  late.  Kiss  me  good-night.  Don't  forget 
that  your  old  Daddy  loves  you  better  than  anybody  else 
in  the  world." 

He  kissed  her  affectionately,  waited  on  the  steps,  till 
he  had  seen  the  large  entrance  door  close  behind  her,  then 
hunted  up  a  taxicab  and  was  driven  home.  It  had  been  a 
long  time  since  he  entered  the  house,  made  desolate  to 


238  THE  TRELOARS 

him  by  Dolly's  absence,  with  so  much  satisfaction  as  he 
felt  to-night.  He  had  acquitted  himself  well.  He  had 
been  resolute,  where  he  had  been  sorely  tempted  to  be 
weak.  He  had  said  plainly  to  Dolly  what  it  had  been  in 
his  heart  to  say  for  a  long  time ;  and  he  had  seen  clearly 
that  he  was  in  no  danger  of  losing  his  daughter,  but  that 
she  would  return  to  him  the  happier  for  their  separ- 
ation. 

CHAPTER  XXV 

DICK  and  Nita  had  just  risen  from  their  late  breakfast, 
served  by  their  Japanese  boy,  Kurita,  who  came  early 
every  morning  and  stayed  till  nightfall  to  do  the  heavy 
work  of  the  new  household.  They  had  been  married 
a  week,  and  not  a  cloud  as  big  as  a  man's  hand  had  ap- 
peared in  their  sky.  Dick  still  felt  himself  adrift  on  an 
ocean  of  bliss,  not  yet  alertly  awake  to  any  sharp  re- 
alities about  him.  Life  was  literally  a  dream.  We  have 
made  such  flat  and  common  use  of  the  word  dream, 
applying  it  to  everything  from  a  strawberry  ice  to  the 
most  finished  work  of  art,  that  it  has  grown  trivial  and 
vulgar;  yet  there  is  no  other  word  that  so  perfectly  ex- 
presses a  pure  joy  distilled  and  freed  from  all  the  im- 
pertinent intrusions  of  reality.  There  was  no  grit  nor 
flaw  in  Dick's  happiness ;  as  for  Nita,  she,  too,  was  happy, 
not  in  the  same  exalted  youthful  way  as  Dick,  who 
seemed  always  to  have  just  finished  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne—  but  in  a  restful,  grateful  way  like  that  of  one 
who  has  been  out  on  a  dangerous  sea  and  comes  safely 
into  port.  She  was  enjoying  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life  the  love  and  companionship  of  an  intelligence  equal 
to  her  own,  and  a  superior  moral  nature  unconscious 
of  itself,  never  obtrusive,  now,  but  making  itself  felt  in 
a  variety  of  delicate  and  subtle  ways.  She  noticed  it 
first  in  his  gentleness  towards  his  inferiors,  to  all  who 
rendered  him  any  service;  and  she  contrasted  it  with 
the  rough  and  brutal,  or  coarse,  jesting  and  familiar 


THE  TRELOARS  239 

manner  which  betrays  the  parvenu  in  many  a  man  who 
hopes  to  conceal  the  fact  by  showing  his  contempt  for 
the  condition  from  which  he  himself  has  so  recently 
sprung.  No  man  or  woman  ever  felt  degraded  in  serving 
Dick,  but  rather  that  it  was  a  privilege  to  do  so.  And 
he  required  so  little  waiting  on,  always  preferring  to 
put  himself  out,  instead  of  anybody  else. 

How  simple,  frank  and  buoyant  he  was,  extraordinarily 
youthful,  in  an  age  when  it  is  the  ambition  of  the  young 
to  have  a  wrinkled  mind  at  twenty,  and  to  die  of  senility 
at  forty.  In  his  moments  of  fresh  enthusiasm,  Nita 
felt  herself  his  senior  by  half  a  century,  and  wondered 
if  she  would  always  be  able  to  conceal  so  admirably  this 
enormous  disparity.  Perhaps  not,  in  that  case,  the  con- 
sciousness of  it  must  either  bore  or  sadden  them  inex- 
pressibly. At  present,  it  was  her  secret  alone,  and  to 
him  she  was  as  fresh  and  bright  as  the  morning  dew. 

She  looked  particularly  bright  this  morning,  in  her 
soft  white  cashmere  gown,  with  a  knot  of  blue  rib- 
bon at  her  neck.  She  had  resolved  to  permit  herself 
no  morning  slovenliness,  to  guard  jealously  the  secrets 
of  her  toilet,  and  always  to  appear  before  Dick  at  her 
best.  They  had  been  obliged  to  compromise  on  a  break- 
fast hour.  Nita,  whose  habits  had  made  an  eleven  o'clock 
breakfast  an  early  one  for  her,  made  her  first  sacrifice 
to  Dick  in  consenting  to  breakfast  at  half-past  nine, 
which  was  a  late  hour  for  him,  especially  as  he  had  a 
long  car  ride  before  him  to  reach  the  down-town 
office,  where  he  had  his  work  to  do.  He  had  tried  stay- 
ing at  home  one  morning  to  see  if  he  could  do  his  work 
there,  as  Nita  suggested,  but  it  was  impossible.  He  could 
not  rid  himself  of  the  consciousness  of  her  presence  long 
enough  to  finish  a  sentence.  In  fact,  it  was  difficult  to 
write  anywhere.  Life  was  a  prolonged  holiday;  and 
these  days  of  perfect  happiness  when  he  seemed  to  live 
a  year  in  a  week,  were  absolutely  sterile,  for  the  time 
being,  so  far  as  intellectual  work  is  concerned.  He  could 
not  think;  he  could  only  feel. 


240  THE  TRELOARS 

Then  the  little  cottage  was  so  charming;  nothing  crude 
nor  glaring  in  its  newness ;  for  Nita's  taste  had  directed 
the  furnishings  and  he  was  always  discovering  some 
new  perfection.  The  site,  too,  was  a  magnificent  one, 
on  the  green  slope  of  a  hill  which  fronted  the  bay,  where 
it  deepens  and  narrows,  so  that  the  low  mountains  on  the 
opposite  shore  with  their  deep  shadowy  ravines  seemed 
within  a  stone's  throw;  and  the  mountains  and  the  bay 
were  as  expressive  as  a  human  face  and  just  as  change- 
able. Sometimes,  they  were  wrapped  in  a  soft  gray 
mist;  sometimes  they  stood  out  bold  and  clear  in  the 
sunlight  against  the  blue  sky,  every  shrub  and  boulder 
and  sinuous  ravine  sharply  outlined.  Again  they  draped 
themselves  in  the  richest  colors,  deep  purple  and  vivid 
green,  and  patches  of  golden  light.  And  all  about  them 
was  that  rarest,  priceless  luxury  of  a  great  city  —  space 
and  silence.  They  were  in  the  city  but  not  of  it  —  its 
harsh  roar  not  reaching  them  even  in  a  murmur  —  its 
existence  evident  to  them  only  at  night  in  its  myriad 
lights  scintillating  from  detached  points  in  space. 

"  What  shall  we  call  our  cottage  ? "  asked  Dick  when 
breakfast  was  over  and  they  were  standing  on  the 
veranda  facing  the  bay.  "  Rose  Bower  ?  but  the  roses  are 
only  just  started,  we  must  wait  a  year  or  two  before  we 
are  embowered  with  them.  Morning  Side?  That 
sounds  good  to  me.  It  is  always  dawn  with  us  here." 

"  O  Dick,  that  reminds  me  of  Max  and  his  Dawn. 
You  know  that  he  wants  you  to  review  it,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  I'm  not  going  to  do  anything  of  the  sort." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  the  less  publicity  one  gives  to  a  disreputable 
thing,  the  less  attention  the  public  will  give  to  it.  Have 
you  seen  his  precious  paper,  Nita  ? " 

"  I've  just  glanced  over  one  or  two  copies." 

"  What  do  you  think  of  it?  " 

"  I  think  it's  very  silly.  Of  course,  you  couldn't  praise 
it,  and  he  doesn't  want  you  to." 

"  Then  he  has  been  talking  to  you  about  it?  " 


THE  TRELOARS  241 

Dick  frowned.  He  felt  nettled.  To  say  the  least, 
Max's  persistence  was  in  very  bad  taste. 

"  Yes,  he  spoke  to  me  about  it,  the  day  he  was  here." 

"  Our  wedding  day  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  I  call  that  impudence !  I  suppose  he  asked 
you  to  use  your  influence  with  me  to  make  me  do  it, 
didn't  he?" 

A  subtle  wish  to  try  her  power  with  Dick  tempted  Nita, 
immediately.  She  felt  challenged  to  prove  that  she  could 
do  with  this  handsome  boy  what  she  chose  to  do ;  so  she 
flashed  on  him  a  radiant  smile  that  warmed  him  like 
wine. 

"  Yes,  dear  Clairvoyant,  that  is  just  what  he  did,  and 
I  told  him  that  I  hadn't  the  slightest  influence  over  you 
to  make  you  do  what  you  didn't  wish  to  do." 

"  You're  a  darling !  "  Dick's  arm  went  about  her  waist 
and  he  kissed  her  repeatedly.  "  You  were  altogether  too 
modest,  though,  about  the  power  of  your  influence.  You 
could  make  me  do  anything,  I  think,  except  to  be  cowardly 
where  my  honor  is  gripped.  But  you  wouldn't  tempt  me 
there,  for  my  honor  is  your  honor.  We  stand  or  fall  to- 
gether, now,  don't  we,  sweetheart  ?  " 

He  bent  his  head  over  hers,  and  his  lips  touched  her 
hair. 

"  Certainly,  Dick,  dear ;  we  stand  or  fall,  together.  I 
hope  I  should  never  tempt  you  to  do  anything  to  your 
dishonor  or  mine ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  I  should  never 
wish  you  to  be  obstinately  or  stupidly  over-punctilious 
about  a  mere  matter  of  taste.  Max  was  kind  to  me  at  a 
time  when  kindness  meant  life  to  me,  and  I  should  find 
it  very  hard  to  refuse  him  a  trifling  service  in  return." 

She  had  touched  Dick  in  his  weakest  point.  She  had 
made  it  a  most  powerful  temptation  to  break  his  inner 
resolve.  He  turned  very  red,  and  taking  his  arm  from 
her  waist,  he  moved  slightly  away  from  her,  so  that  he 
could  look  squarely  into  her  face.  He  hated  himself 
for  what  he  was  going  to  say,  but  a  high  instinct  of  self- 


242  THE  TRELOARS 

preservation  was  stirring  within  him,  warning  him  that 
if  he  hesitated  now,  he  was  lost.  He  tried  to  speak 
calmly,  but  his  heart  was  beating  so  fast  that  he  thought 
she  must  hear  its  throbs  in  his  voice. 

"  Nita,  this  is  not  a  matter  of  taste ;  it  is  a  matter  of 
principle.  As  to  the  question  of  serving  Max,  the  high- 
est service  we  can  render  him,  now,  is  to  save  him  from 
himself.  I  am  very  fond  of  Max;  I  don't  forget  what 
he  was  to  me  some  six  or  seven  years  ago  when  I  was 
a  raw  young  fellow  in  college.  But  he  was  a  very  differ- 
ent fellow  then;  at  any  rate,  so  far  as  his  theories  of 
art  and  literature  are  concerned.  Of  course,  he  had  even, 
then,  that  racial  arrogance  which  led  him  to  feel  himself 
superior  to  Americans,  and  he  had  no  real  sympathy  with 
his  fellow  men,  though  he  thought  he  had,  and  admired 
Shelley  very  much  for  his  atheism  and  sentimental  hu- 
manitarianism.  There  was  always  a  false  romantic 
streak  in  him.  He  lived  in  a  kind  of  mental  isolation 
which  he  dignified  by  the  name  of  independence;  but  he 
liked  us  Treolars,  and  we  liked  him.  We  soon  discovered 
that  he  had  an  irritable  sensitiveness  which  we  had  to  be 
very  careful  about  offending.  He  could  pet  and  nourish 
a  slight  grievance  till  he  made  crime  and  treachery  out 
of  it.  He  was  moody,  unreliable.  He  would  give  away 
everything  he  had  in  a  moment  of  expansion  and  haggle 
over  a  penny,  if  he  thought  anybody  wanted  it,  when  he 
didn't  want  to  give  it.  A  strange  compound,  proud  as 
Lucifer,  and  with  it  all,  flashes  of  real  genius  —  just 
enough  to  make  a  man  hope  to  do  something  too  big  for 
him.  What  we  have  to  do  with  Max  and  his  artistic 
temperament,  is  to  save  him  if  possible  from  the  folly 
into  which  it  has  hurried  him." 

"  How  are  you  going  to  do  it  ?  " 

"  By  ignoring  the  folly.  That  is  the  way  to  pardon  it, 
isn't  it?" 

"  But  you  can't  go  on  ignoring  what  another  persists 
in  flaunting  in  your  face.  Until  Max  himself  is  ready  to 
acknowledge  his  folly  and  abandon  it,  our  ignoring  it  is 
only  an  offense  to  him,  it  is  not  a  pardon." 


THE  TRELOARS  243 

. 

"  Then  we  must  offend  him,"  said  Dick,  taking  a  cigar 
from  his  pocket  and  lighting  it. 

"  Excuse  me,  Dick,  but  one  doesn't  offend  one's 
friends." 

"  One  doesn't  pat  their  follies  on  the  back,  Nita,  and 
encourage  them  to  go  on  with  them.  That  is  not  being  a 
friend;  it  is  being  an  enemy.  That  is  the  one  great 
trouble  with  literature  in  America.  We  have  no  criticism 
on  contemporary  writers,  because  every  author  knows 
every  other  author  and  dares  not  for  the  life  of  him 
express  his  real  opinion  for  fear  of  giving  offense.  So 
they  all  get  into  a  little  pool  of  sugared  water  and  splash 
each  other  in  a  friendly  manner  with  it,  and  all  taste  and 
smell  good  to  each  other.  God !  it's  sickening." 

Dick  shook  his  head  and  an  expression  of  nausea  passed 
over  his  face. 

"  Yes,  but  my  dear  boy,"  Nita  put  an  unnecessary  em- 
phasis into  the  word,  dear,  because  she  was  going  to  be 
disagreeably  insistent,  "  Max  isn't  asking  you  to  splash 
him  with  sugared  water,  he  is  asking  you  to  throw  mud 
at  him.  I  should  think  you  would  really  enjoy  doing 
that.  It  would  give  you  a  chance  to  criticise  severely  what 
seems  nauseous  and  vulgar  to  you,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  bring  out  clearly  the  real  values  in  literature." 

"  But  don't  you  see,  Nita  dear,"  Dick  threw  away 
his  cigar,  and  took  her  two  hands  in  his,  "  don't  you  see 
that  just  because  Max  wants  that,  I  mustn't  do  it.  He 
knows  that  absolute  silence  is  death  to  his  enterprise.  He 
knows  that  if  he  can  only  arouse  a  clamor  he  will  have 
all  eyes  turned  his  way,  and  once  turned  his  way,  he 
knows  that  there  is  just  enough  perversity  and  prurient 
ignorance  in  the  reading  world  to  secure  him  paying 
followers.  You  can  put  all  sorts  of  silly  and  vicious 
ideas  into  people's  heads  that  never  would  have  entered 
them,  if  you  hadn't  suggested  them,  on  the  pretext  of 
warning  them.  The  public  is  like  this.  Tell  it  that  a 
book  is  indecent,  a  menace  to  good  morals,  and  it  can't 
buy  it  fast  enough.  I  stood  beside  a  woman  at  a  public 


244  THE  TRELOARS 

library  not  long  ago.  She  said,  '  I  want  a  thriller.  I 
want  a  book  that  will  raise  the  hair  on  my  head/  As 
half  of  her  hair  wasn't  her  own,  I  don't  know  how  she 
expected  that  to  be  done  emotionally,  but  expect  it,  she 
did.  I  don't  know  what  they  gave  her.  I  heard  an- 
other woman  say  of  a  book,  '  This  looks  by  the  pictures, 
as  if  it  was  good.'  When  your  public's  like  that,  what 
can  you  expect  of  it  ?  Sometimes,  I  think  it's  a  pity  that 
everybody  knows  how  to  read.  Now,  Nita,  have  I  made 
it  plain  to  you  that  I  don't  propose  to  advertise  thrillers; 
and  that  it  is  really  a  matter  of  principle  with  me  ?  " 

"  Yes,  only  your  silence  won't  prevent  them  from  be- 
ing written  and  read,  because  your  silence  can't  change 
human  nature.  It  just  goes  on  being  made  after  the  same 
old  formula;  and  I  have  so  little  respect  for  it,  that  I 
don't  care  whether  its  hair  rises  or  lies  as  flat  as  a  pan- 
cake. The  hair-raising  neither  raises  nor  lowers  its  intel- 
ligence, for  it  hasn't  any.  It  just  crisps  the  epidermis. 
Then,  somebody  else  will  speak,  if  you  don't;  and  per- 
haps not  in  so  vigorous  and  critical  a  way.  Would  you 
mind,  Dick,  if  I  tried  it?" 

Dick  looked  at  her  in  unfeigned  astonishment.  He 
could  not  understand  how  it  was  possible  for  her  to  be 
so  persistent,  in  the  face  of  his  displeasure ;  but  he  checked 
the  impatient  words  that  were  rising  to  his  lips,  and  said 
generously : 

"  You  are  as  much  your  own  mistress,  as  much  a  law 
to  yourself,  as  you  ever  were.  I  would  not  put  so  much 
as  a  cobweb  between  your  will  and  mine.  You  know 
how  I  feel  about  this  matter,  but  I  do  not  wish  to  impose 
my  conviction  on  you.  I  shall  love  you  none  the  less, 
whatever  you  do.  I  did  not  marry  you  to  make  you 
my  echo.  One  of  me  is  enough." 

He  took  out  his  watch,  glanced  at  it,  then  put  it  hastily 
into  his  pocket  with  an  exclamation  of  wonder  at  the  way 
in  which  the  hours  simply  flew  when  he  was  with  her,  and 
dragged  while  he  was  away.  He  got  his  hat,  and  kissed 
her  good-by  with  unusual  tenderness;  perhaps,  because 


THE  TRELOARS  245 

deep  in  his  heart,  in  spite  of  his  brave  words,  she  had 
hurt  him.  Twice  in  the  road,  on  his  way  to  the  car,  he 
turned  to  wave  his  hand  at  her  and  smile.  She  stood 
and  watched  him  till  he  was  out  of  sight.  Then,  be- 
cause he  loved  her  so  much  that  her  very  faults  were 
dear  to  him,  he  made  all  sorts  of  excuses  to  himself  for 
her  persistency. 

In  associating  his  life  with  hers,  had  the  doubt  ever 
intruded  itself  that  she  would  be  one  with  him  in  this 
aim?  No,  she  was  to  be  to  him  all  that  Margaret  had 
been  and  more.  Margaret !  It  came  upon  him  suddenly, 
that  Margaret's  image  had  been  blurred  and  feeble  in 
his  memory  for  many  a  day,  that  she  had  not  been  at  his 
wedding,  that  he  knew  she  was  not  well,  that  he  had 
expressed  no  concern  about  her,  and  had  not  yet  thanked 
her  for  her  share  in  the  gift  of  the  beautiful  library  table. 
What  a  brute  happiness  had  made  of  him!  He  would 
write  to  her  as  soon  as  he  got  to  the  office.  He  would 
tell  her  that  his  marriage  made  no  difference  whatever 
in  his  love  for  her,  that  she  would  still  be  to  him,  what 
she  had  always  been,  his  true  and  faithful  guide.  It 
did  not  trouble  him  nor  appear  inconsistent  that  in  the 
weightiest  action  of  his  life,  he  had  not  sought  her  guid- 
ance, but  had  wandered  far  astray  from  the  path  which 
she  pointed  out  to  him.  His  union  with  Nita  still  seemed 
to  him  a  beautiful  necessity,  admitting  neither  counsel  nor 
possibility  of  avoidance. 

Dick  was  quite  right  in  congratulating  himself 
upon  his  answer  to  Nita;  for  though  she  had  seemingly 
half -deferred  to  his  judgment,  she  had  inwardly  con- 
demned it,  and  had  resolved  to  do  as  she  pleased,  no 
matter  what  the  consequences  might  be.  In  becoming 
Mrs.  Treloar,  she  had  never  had  the  slightest  intention 
of  becoming  her  husband's  passive  reflection.  There 
were  always  to  be  two  of  them.  She  would  be  quite 
fair.  She  would  not  trammel  Dick's  personality  any 
more  than  she  would  allow  him  to  trammel  or  efface 
hers.  Both  were  to  be  entirely  free.  But  this  resolu- 


246  s     THE  TRELOARS 

tion  did  not  absolve  her  from  the  privilege  of  being  crit- 
ical, and  in  this  question  of  Dick's  refusal  to  review  the 
Dawn,  she  saw  nothing  but  obstinacy  and  unfriendliness. 
Her  knowledge  of  human  nature  had  not  been  acquired 
in  a  select  school  for  it,  therefore,  she  did  Dick  the 
injustice  of  believing  that  he  was  jealous  of  Max  and 
that  that  was  all  his  much-boasted  principle  amounted  to. 
Viewed  in  that  light,  it  looked  rather  contemptible  to 
her.  He  was  just  a  man,  like  the  rest  of  them.  Well, 
had  she  ever  supposed  he  was  anything  else  ?  No,  he  was 
just  a  little  younger,  all  his  illusions  yet  intact  —  beau- 
tiful bubbles  floating  around  him  —  how  many  was  she 
destined  to  break?  She  was  just  at  this  point  of  her 
soliloquy,  when  a  voice  called  out : 

"  Ah,  there  you  are !  " 

Turning  around,  she  saw  Philip  Treloar  at  the  foot  of 
the  flight  of  steps  leading  to  the  veranda.  She  hastened 
towards  him,  saying : 

"  Why,  Father  Treloar,  how  glad  I  am  to  see  you ! 
What  are  you  doing  with  that  big  basket  on  your  arm  ?  " 

"  Betty  churned  last  night,  and  we  had  fresh  butter, 
and  fresh  buttermilk,  and  fresh  eggs  this  morning,  and 
Margaret  wanted  to  share  all  this  freshness  with  you,  and 
was  going  to  send  Frank  over  with  them,  and  I  volun- 
teered to  deliver  them  myself,  so  here  I  am." 

"  O,  thank  you  so  very  much,  That  was  lovely  of 
you  and  lovely  of  her  to  think  of  us.  We  are  both  fond 
of  fresh  buttermilk.  Kurita !  " 

She  opened  the  kitchen  door,  and  the  Japanese  boy  ap- 
peared at  her  call. 

"  Take  these  things,  please,  Kurita,  and  put  them  into 
the  cooler.  And,  father,  come  right  into  the  house,  will 
you?  I  am  so  glad  you  have  come.  Is  Margaret  feel- 
ing better  ?  " 

"  She  hasn't  been  ill,  that  I  know  of." 

"Hasn't  she?  I  thought "  Nita  didn't  tell  what 

she  thought,  but  changed  her  sentence  quickly  to  the 
question : 


THE  TRELOARS  247 

"Didn't  you  meet  Dick?" 

"  No,  I  didn't  see  him.  You  are  not  such  early  risers  as 
we  country  people,  I  see." 

"  No,  we  are  not.  I'm  afraid  I'm  spoiling  Dick ;  but 
the  days  are  so  long  without  him.  He  can't  come  home 
for  lunch.  We're  too  far  away  from  the  city.  But 
isn't  it  lovely  here  ? " 

She  had  taken  his  hat  and  hung  it  on  the  rack  in 
the  vestibule  and  ushered  him  into  the  pretty  reception 
room  with  its  wide  low  windows  looking  out  on  the  moun- 
tains and  the  water.  A  handsome  oriental  rug  in 
softened  rose  tints  mingled  with  dark  blue  lay  on  the 
polished  floor,  and  the  grayish  blue  tinted  walls  har- 
monized with  it.  A  few  fine  landscapes  adorned  the 
walls,  picturesque  bits  of  the  English  lake  regions,  and 
the  Italian  coast,  but  they  seemed  almost  impertinent  and 
superfluous,  when  one  turned  to  the  windows  and  caught 
the  sparkle  of  the  living  blue,  and  the  changing  hues  of 
the  real  mountains. 

"  I  think  I  shall  never  tire  of  this  glorious  view  and 
this  glorious  quiet,"  continued  Nita,  drawing  a  chair  to 
the  window  for  Mr.  Treloar  and  seating  herself  opposite 
to  him. 

"  O,  yes  you  will,"  he  replied,  glancing  out  of  the 
window  and  turning  again  to  her.  "  Just  wait  till  the 
rains  begin,  they're  due  this  month;  when  you  can't  go 
out  without  slopping  yourself  all  over;  and  you'll  be 
glad  to  trade  your  mountains  for  a  house  next  door  and 
a  good  neighbor  in  it.  Mountains  can't  talk ;  and  what's 
the  use  of  a  day,  if  you  can't  get  some  good  talk  into  it." 

"  Well,  you  can  do  some  good  thinking." 

"  Yes,  but  that's  like  the  rise  and  fall  of  water  in 
a  fountain.  It  doesn't  get  anywhere.  You  need  a  chan- 
nel for  the  water  to  flow  in." 

"  Then  there's  Dick  coming  home  to  me  at  night,  you 
know." 

Mr.  Treloar  laughed. 

"  My  dear  child,  Dick  will  be  like  all  the  rest  of  the 


248  THE  TRELOARS 

husbands,  when  the  gilt  edge  of  matrimony  wears  off. 
He  won't  want  to  talk,  when  he  comes  home.  He's  been 
talking  all  day  long,  and  his  treat  will  be  to  sit  quietly  in 
his  shirt  sleeves  with  his  collar  off,  and  smoke  his  pipe 
behind  his  newspaper.  Of  course,  he  hasn't  come  to  that, 
yet." 

"  I  should  think  not !  I  still  mean  more  than  his  news- 
paper to  him." 

"  Well,  don't  think  that  you've  stopped  meaning  any- 
thing to  him,  when  he  takes  to  reading  his  paper  in  your 
presence.  My  wife  had  a  good  cry  the  first  time  that  I 
did  that  with  her,  and  I  had  to  assure  her  that  I  loved 
her  more  than  ever,  for  I  was  feeling  so  perfectly  at  home 
with  her  that  I  wasn't  conscious  of  there  being  two  of  us. 
We  were  just  one." 

"  But  that  is  just  what  Dick  and  I  don't  want  to  hap- 
pen. I  should  be  sorry  to  lose  my  identity  in  him,  or 
have  him  lose  his,  in  me." 

"  That's  all  right  for  the  honeymoon ;  but  the  honey 
is  apt  to  grow  scarce  for  the  rest  of  the  long  life  together, 
if  people  don't  find  themselves  gradually  growing  one." 

"  Dick  and  I  had  our  first  difference  to-day,  Father 
Treloar ;  what  do  you  think  of  that  ?  " 

"  That  it  wasn't  very  serious,  or  you  wouldn't  be  smil- 
ing." 

"  No,  it  was  not  very  serious,  but  it  was  a  real  differ- 
ence. I  must  tell  you  about  it.  You  know  Max  Giet- 
mann,  of  course." 

"  Very  well.  He  used  to  be  out  at  the  house  a  good 
deal,  five  or  six  years  ago.  I  have  only  seen  him  twice 
since  his  return  from  Europe." 

"  You  know  that  he  is  publishing  a  journal  called  the 
Dawn,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  there's  not  much  light  in  it,  though,  is  there  ?  " 

"  No !  It's  perfect  rot  from  my  point  of  view.  I  don't 
know  what  he  means  by  this  performance.  I  always  had 
rather  a  high  idea  of  his  intelligence,  but —  Well,  to 
come  to  the  point,  he  wants  Dick  to  write  a  harsh  review 


THE  TRELOARS  249 

of  it  to  excite  the  curiosity  of  the  public.  Now  Max  and 
I  are  old  friends,  and  since  he  wants  that  done,  I  asked 
Dick  to  do  it.  He  hates  the  stuff,  you  know,  and  could 
run  his  pen  through  it  beautifully.  What  do  you  sup- 
pose he  said  ? " 

"  That  he  wouldn't  do  it." 

"  Yes." 

"What's  his  reason?" 

"  That  it  would  be  advertising  it,  and  that  he  doesn't 
intend  to  do  it,  as  a  matter  of  principle." 

"  Well,  there's  something  in  that." 

"  Not  very  much.  You  know  very  well,  Father  Tre- 
loar  that  if  Max  intends  bringing  it  before  the  public,  all 
that  Dick  can  say  or  not  say  amounts  to  a  row  of  pins. 
And  then  by  really  showing  the  absurdity  of  it,  Dick 
could  influence  a  few  people  who  are  really  anxious  to 
think  right,  but  don't  know  how.  Then,  Max  is  my 
friend,  and  I  should  like  to  oblige  him  in  this  matter,  so 
I  told  Dick  —  or,  rather,  I  asked  him,  if  he  would 
mind  my  doing  it." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"  He  said  I  might  do  as  I  pleased,  which  of  course  was 
very  lovely  of  him,  and  yet  —  what  else  could  he  have 
said?" 

"You  are  going  to  write  this  review  yourself,  then?" 

"  I  don't  know.  I  can  talk  readily  enough,  but  I  am  so 
stupid  with  my  pen  that  as  soon  as  I  try  to  write  I  am  as 
empty  of  thought  as  a  stagnant  pool ;  and  there  is  never  an 
angel  will  come  down  to  stir  the  waters  for  me." 

"  Have  you  got  a  copy  of  this  Dawn." 

"  Yes,  there's  one  in  the  library.     I'll  get  it  for  you." 

She  came  back  with  the  copy,  and  as  she  handed  it  to 
him,  she  asked : 

"  Has  Dick  ever  thanked  Margaret  for  the  beautiful 
library  table?  If  he  hasn't,  will  you  tell  her  for  me, 
how  much  he  admires  it  and  how  grateful  he  is  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  will." 

Mr.  Treloar  turned  over  the  pages  of  the  Dawn  with 
keen  interest,  and  then  burst  out  laughing. 


250  THE  TRELOARS 

"This  is  great!  I've  been  telling  Parker  for  years 
that  materialism  was  going  to  end  in  just  this  hideous 
mess,  and  he  has  laughed  at  me.  When  you  destroy  all 
standards,  and  each  man  sets  up  his  own  little  stinking 
penny  candle  to  revolve  about,  and  turns  away  from  the 
central  sun,  you're  going  to  get  just  such  a  chaos  as  this. 
Max  is  fulfilling  Nietzsche's  prophecy  concerning  his  na- 
tion :  '  When  a  German  ceases  to  be  Faust,  his  greatest 
danger  is  of  becoming  a  Philistine  and  going  straight  to 
the  devil.  Nothing  but  the  heavenly  powers  can  save  him 
from  ruin.'  But  I  am  afraid  poor  Max  is  beyond  even  the 
heavenly  powers." 

"  I  think  he'd  love  to  have  you  say  that,"  said  Nita, 
watching  Mr.  Treloar's  growing  excitement  with  amused 
interest.  "  Don't  you  think  you  could  write  a  stunning 
attack  on  that  ?  And  don't  you  think  you  ought  to  ?  A 
tolerant  or  indifferent  attitude  isn't  going  to  set  people 
right.  Didn't  Christ  overturn  the  money  changers'  tables 
in  the  temple  and  drive  them  out  with  bitter  reproaches  ?  " 

"  Certainly !  I  think  this  Dawn  is  a  lovely  text  for  a  lot 
of  harsh  truths  that  need  saying.  I'll  write  a  review  of 
it.  I  think  I  could  go  Dick  one  better  on  it." 

"  I  am  sure  you  could,"  exclaimed  Nita,  clapping  her 
hands,  "  and  I  am  so  grateful  to  you  for  doing  it,  but  of 
course,  I  should  not  wish  you  to  do  it,  if  like  Dick,  it 
would  offend  any  of  your  principles." 

Perhaps  she  uttered  the  last  word  with  the  slightest 
tinge  of  irony,  for  Mr.  Treloar  answered : 

"  My  principles  have  done  nursing  and  can  walk  alone. 
They  wouldn't  be  injured  by  anything  I  could  do;  and 
they  never  interfere  with  my  inspirations." 

"  Singular  old  man !  "  thought  Nita,  when  he  had  gone. 
"  One  might  think  that  he  was  glad  to  see  Max  go  wrong 
in  order  to  save  his  theories.  He  has  a  great  deal  of 
sincerity  in  his  way,  which  is  a  little  peculiar,  and  a  great 
deal  of  penetration,  yet  he  doesn't  know  that  I  could  do 
anything  I  liked  with  him.  But  it  wouldn't  be  worth 


THE  TRELOARS  251 

while,  except  to  tease  his  precious  daughter,  Margaret. 
I  knew  she  wasn't  sick.  She  means  to  cut  me,  and  cover 
the  cut  to  the  rest  of  the  family  with  butter  and  eggs. 
Well,  I  don't  much  care,  since  I  have  cut  her  most  de- 
liciously  in  turn,  by  taking  Dick  away  from  her.  And 
do  I  want  him,  now  that  I  have  him?  I  wonder  why  I 
did  it?  My  world  was  standing  still,  and  I  thought  it 
was  never  going  to  move  again.  I  was  sick.  I  begin  to 
feel  well.  If  Dick  comes  home  to-night  silent  or 
uppish  — "  she  pressed  her  lips  together  instead  of  finish- 
ing the  thought,  and  went  to  her  room  to  dress  herself. 

Dick  brought  home  with  him  that  night  a  box  of  beau- 
tiful fragrant  hot-house  flowers,  and  a  box  of  delicious 
chocolates.  He  gave  them  to  her  with  the  same  warm, 
affectionate  impulsive  wish  to  please  that  he  had  always 
shown  her;  and  the  better  woman  in  her  was  deeply 
ashamed  of  the  ugly  treacherous  thoughts  which  she 
had  nursed  in  his  absence.  She  was  as  sweet  and  gentle 
with  him,  as  if  her  heart  had  never  for  a  moment  failed 
in  its  allegiance  to  him.  But  she  said  not  a  word  to  him 
about  asking  his  father  to  criticise  the  Dawn,  though  she 
spoke  prettily  of  his  visit,  and  mentioned  her  message  to 
Margaret.  It  was  as  if  both  had  silently  resolved  not  to 
speak  of  the  Dawn  again. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  rainy  season  was  on  —  not  a  day  or  two  of  cloudy 
weather,  a  heavy  downpour  of  rain  followed  by  a  burst 
of  sunshine,  but  a  steady  persistent  rain  that  blotted 
the  sun  out  of  the  sky,  that  fell  drearily  day  after  day, 
and  night  after  night,  till  the  soaked  earth  refused  to  re- 
ceive it,  and  water  lay  on  the  surface  in  muddy  pools, 
wherever  there  was  a  hollow  place,  and  spread  in  flat 
shallows  over  low  grassy  spots,  and  gathered  in  furrows 
about  the  roots  of  trees,  and  ran  in  little  streams  along 
the  edges  of  gravel  paths,  and  fell  with  an  incessant  drip 


252  THE  TRELOARS 

and  splash  on  roofs  and  against  window  panes.  Some- 
times, the  wind  added  its  movement  to  the  dismal  scene, 
and  tall  trees  writhed  in  it,  or  bent  their  leafy  summits 
and  showed  the  white  side  of  their  twisted  leaves;  and 
slender  vines  were  torn  and  washed  from  their  fasten- 
ings, and  sprawled  along  the  drenched  earth,  beaten  and 
lashed  beyond  all  possibility  of  rising  again.  Sometimes 
when  the  fury  of  wind  and  rain  were  abated,  the  wet  earth 
steamed  with  a  low,  heavy  fog  that  blotted  out  the  land- 
scape. 

It  might  not  have  been  depressing  for  one  who  had  a 
genius  for  solitude  to  look  out  on  the  sullen  sky,  to  hear 
all  day  the  dreary  moan  of  the  wind  and  the  monotonous 
splash  of  the  rain.  He  might  recreate  his  own  sunlight 
from  the  memory  of  sunny  hours;  he  might  enliven  his 
solitude  with  the  creations  of  his  brain,  or  with  the  com- 
panionship of  living  books.  He  might  dull  the  edge  of 
an  over-sharpened,  obtrusive  self-consciousness  by  plan- 
ning or  executing  some  loving  service  for  others.  There 
are  multitudes  of  obscure,  devoted  mothers  and  patient 
housewives  who  brighten  their  solitude  in  this  golden 
way;  but  Nita  had  neither  a  genius  for  solitude,  nor  the 
stuff  of  which  devoted  mothers  and  good  housewives  are 
made ;  and  though  she  had  voluntarily  accepted  this  yoke 
of  marriage,  she  had  overrated  her  power  to  find  con- 
tentment and  happiness  in  the  quiet,  uneventful  routine  of 
family  life.  She  had  wholly  misunderstood  the  mysteri- 
ous laws  of  life,  when  she  had  supposed  it  possible  by 
an  act  of  the  will  to  obliterate  the  past,  to  destroy  all  the 
subtle  effects  of  habit,  and  peculiar  turns  of  thought 
formed  by  long  years  of  willfulness  and  self-indulgence. 

She  did  not  know  that  public  applause,  approving 
smiles,  the  side-long  glances  of  envy  that  were  unwilling 
tributes  to  her  power,  had  become  a  necessity  to  her. 
She  missed  the  stimulus  of  excitement  which  was  wont  to 
occupy  the  restless  energy  that  filled  her.  Had  she  mar- 
ried a  man  of  wealth  and  distinction,  who  could  have 
given  her  the  excitement  of  social  triumphs  and  incessant 


THE  TRELOARS  253 

change  of  scene,  all  might  have  gone  well  with  her,  so 
far  as  the  world  calls  well.  But  she  had  married  an 
obscure  young  journalist.  She  had  wedded  solitude  and 
retirement ;  and  nothing  in  her  life,  her  tastes,  her  talents, 
fitted  her  for  this  new  role,  actress  though  she  was.  Its 
novelty  had  seduced  her  in  a  moment  of  illness  and  weari- 
ness. The  novelty  was  gone  —  the  situation  remained. 
At  first,  she  did  not  see  that  the  fault  of  the  disenchant- 
ment lay  in  herself.  She  thought  it  the  effect  of  the 
dismal  weather,  of  the  incessant  drip  and  splash  of  the 
rain,  of  the  leaden  sky  that  hung  over  the  earth  like  a  pall. 

"  O,  Dick,  I  am  so  tired  of  it !  "  she  said  one  morning. 
"Rain!  rain!  rain!  Nothing  but  rain  all  day  long!  I 
am  not  going  to  get  up.  I  don't  feel  well.  Tell  Kurita 
to  bring  me  a  cup  of  fresh  coffee  and  an  egg  on  toast 
about  half  past  ten,  will  you?  You  don't  mind  my  not 
breakfasting  with  you,  this  morning,  do  you?" 

The  dining-room  would  be  empty  without  her,  and  the 
breakfast  without  savor;  he  did  mind  it  very  much,  but 
he  would  not  have  said  so  for  the  world,  if  that  would 
have  caused  her  to  make  an  unwilling  exertion,  so  he 
bent  over  the  bed  and  kissed  her  and  stroked  the  loose 
hair  away  from  her  forehead,  saying : 

"  Of  course  not.  I  should  mind  it  very  much,  if  you 
got  up  when  you  didn't  feel  like  it.  Does  your  head 
ache,  love  ?  " 

"  No,  I  just  feel  tired!  infinitely  tired!  as  if  it  were  an 
effort  to  lift  my  hand.  I  should  like  to  lie  here  forever, 
and  doze  away  into  eternity." 

She  spoke  with  a  lifeless  drawl,  and  moved  her  head 
away  from  his  caressing  hand,  and  closed  her  eyes.  Dick 
looked  at  her  intently,  and  noticed  dark  blue  circles  about 
her  eyes,  and  a  drawn  white  look  in  her  face.  It  alarmed 
him. 

"  Nita,  dear,  I  am  going  to  telephone  for  a  doctor,  you 
are  not  well." 

She  opened  her  eyes  quickly. 

"  No,  you  are  not,  Dick !     There  is  nothing  the  matter 


254  THE  TRELOARS 

with  me,  I  assure  you ;  so  please  don't  be  silly  about  me. 
Just  let  me  alone.  I'll  be  all  right  when  you  come  home 
this  evening.  Now  run  away  and  get  your  breakfast,  like 
a  good  boy." 

"  But  I  can't  bear  to  leave  you  alone  when  you  aren't 
well." 

"  But  I  am  well.  I  am  just  tired  and  you  are  tiring 
me  more  by  arguing  about  it.  Come  home  early,  if  you 
like.  But  go  now,  please." 

She  shut  her  eyes  again  and  sighed  wearily.  Dick 
bent  over  her  and  softly  kissed  her  again;  then,  turning 
to  the  windows,  drew  the  shades  entirely  down,  and 
started  to  tiptoe  out  of  the  room.  Just  as  he  passed  the 
night-table  near  the  bed,  he  brushed  awkwardly  against 
it,  and  knocked  off  a  drinking  glass  that  fell  with  a  crash 
to  the  floor.  Nita  trembled  all  over  with  a  nervous  start. 

She  put  her  finger  on  the  electric  bell  at  the  head  of  her 
bed,  and  Kurita  appeared,  while  Dick  pulled  up  the  shades 
to  take  full  account  of  the  mischief  he  had  done. 

"  Bring  in  a  dust  pan  and  broom,  and  sweep  up  the 
broken  glass ;  and  at  half  past  ten,  bring  me  some  coffee 
and  a  poached  egg  on  toast.  Do  you  understand, 
Kurita?" 

"  Yes,  sar ! "  answered  Kurita,  disappearing  and  re- 
appearing with  quick,  cat-like  movements  which  made 
poor  Dick  feel  what  an  awkward  brute  he  himself  was. 
Nita  refused  to  help  him  recover  his  self-esteem  by  an 
indulgent  word,  although  he  lingered  until  all  the  mess 
was  cleared  away.  She  could  so  easily  have  done  it  with 
a  smile,  a  light  joke,  a  caress,  a  touch,  a  word  —  one  of 
those  little  indescribable  marks  of  good  humor  and  ten- 
derness which  transform  the  little  crosses  of  daily  life 
into  food  for  mirth  and  laughter. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,  Nita.  I  beg  your  pardon  a  thousand 
times !  I  am  such  a  brute !  "  he  said,  humbly.  She  kept 
her  eyes  closed,  sighed  and  said  nothing,  and  Dick  walked 
out  of  the  room. 

As  for  Nita,  left  alone,  the  nervous  tension  relaxed, 


THE  TRELOARS  255 

she  burst  out  crying.  She  felt  as  if  she  wanted  to  scream 
at  the  top  of  her  lungs,  to  jump  up  and  down  with  rage 
like  an  angry  child,  to  break  the  windows,  or  tear  some- 
thing to  tatters.  Dick  had  carelessly  left  open  the  closet 
door,  opposite  the  foot  of  her  bed,  and  from  where  she 
lay,  she  could  see  his  coat  and  trousers  suspended  from  a 
hanger.  By  virtue  of  some  hysterical  caprice  the  sight  was 
indescribably  hateful  to  her.  She  rose  and  slammed  shut 
the  closet  door  with  all  the  violence  she  could  command. 
O,  could  she  only  so  effectually  shut  out  from  her  sight, 
her  mind,  her  life,  this  hateful  connexion  with  Dick  —  this 
stupid  nightmare  blunder  of  a  marriage  which  seemed  to 
her  now  the  very  climax  of  folly;  a  screaming  farce! 
What  had  she  to  do  with  marriage  who  knew  the  glories 
and  dangers  of  freedom,  the  excitement  of  the  unex- 
pected, the  adventurous  launching  of  life  in  all  directions  ? 
How  was  it  possible  to  be  so  blind  as  not  to  foresee  the 
dreary,  insufferable  weariness  of  a  life  in  which  every 
day  was  but  a  repetition  of  the  day  before;  a  life  in  which 
further  growth  was  impossible  —  a  life  of  hateful  stag- 
nation! By  what  illusion  had  she  been  deceived  into 
thinking  that  she  could  love  truly  again,  she  who  had 
loved  so  often,  who  knew  all  the  phases  of  love's  exalta- 
tion, illusion,  indifference,  aversion !  Pictures  of  the  past 
arose  in  her  mind ;  she  recalled  with  a  bitter  smile  a 
conversation  she  had  once  had  with  an  Italian,  a  stout, 
rubicund  father  of  a  family,  who  said,  looking  at  her  with 
that  bold  admiration  which  was  so  familiar  to  her  in  men's 
eyes: 

"  Marriage  is  founded  on  the  false  assumption  that  you 
can  legalize  an  emotion,  dominate  an  instinct  by  law, 
set  two  hearts  to  beating  in  unison  by  a  prescribed  man-  V 
ner  of  living.  I  won't  call  an  instinct  a  holy  thing,  any 
more  than  I  would  call  the  law  of  gravitation  a  holy  thing ; 
I  only  say  that  it  has  the  same  inviolable  necessity  about 
it,  so  what  are  you  going  to  do?  Marriage  is  probably 
as  good  a  way  to  tether  a  man  to  duty  as  any  other; 
but  let  him  enter  into  the  bargain,  wide  awake.  Let  him 


256  THE  TRELOARS 

take  note  whether  he  is  cut  out  for  a  racer  or  a  draught 
horse;  whether  he  can  bear  routine,  or  has  the  spirit  of 
an  adventurer.  In  any  case,  let  him  be  very  sure  that  it 
is  not  going  to  be  all  strawberries  and  cream  and  no 
grit;  and  that  even  if  it  were,  he'd  get  tired  of  the  steady 
diet.  I  am  myself  rather  fond  of  rice,  but  rice  three 
times  a  day,  year  in  and  year  out,  would  put  a  finish  to 
my  enjoyment  of  rice." 

"  Rice  three  times  a  day,  ah !  that's  what's  the  matter 
with  me,"  groaned  Nita,  "  rice  and  rain !  I  want  the  sun- 
shine; I  want  a  change  from  this  awful  monotony." 

Coming  home,  full  of  solicitude  and  tenderness  for  her, 
Dick  was  not  at  all  prepared  to  find  her  powdered  and 
rouged  and  brilliant,  and  quite  bent  upon  persuading  him 
to  shut  up  the  house  for  a  month  or  six  weeks,  till  the 
rainy  season  was  over,  and  go  to  New  York.  They  were 
both  in  need  of  the  change,  Dick  quite  as  much  as  she. 
How  nervous  they  had  both  been  this  morning.  Their 
first  duty  to  themselves  was  to  escape  the  monotony  of 
this  depressing  season.  They  would  come  back  with 
the  sunshine,  refreshed  and  heartened. 

Dick  looked  at  Nita  in  perfect  amazement.  Was  this 
bright-eyed  voluble  woman  the  same  woman  he  had  left 
in  bed  this  morning,  white  and  exhausted,  so  tired  that 
she  wished  she  could  sleep  forever?  Had  she  forgotten 
that  he  was  a  bread-winner,  whose  hand  must  be  at  his 
task,  and  that  his  task  was  a  peculiar  one,  requiring  re- 
pose and  solitude?  For  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  felt 
poor  and  helpless  and  ashamed  of  the  fact.  He  blushed, 
he  stammered,  finally  he  found  courage  enough  to  say : 

"  You  know,  Nita,  dear,  I  never  concealed  from  you  the 
fact  that  I  am  not  a  rich  man,  that  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  thousand  dollars,  all  my  wealth  is  in  my  youth, 
my  health,  and  my  brains.  I  have  my  work  here  which  I 
cannot  leave  just  now." 

"  But,  Dick,  it  is  head  work.  You  can  do  it  just  as  well 
in  one  place  as  another.  And  New  York,  I  should  think, 
would  offer  you  exceptional  advantages  in  extra  work, 


THE  TRELOARS  257 

such  as  interviewing,  that  would  more  than  pay  all  our 
expenses.  I  have  been  thinking  it  all  over  this  afternoon. 
I  am  not  unreasonable  nor  impractical.  A  woman  who 
has  had  my  experience  in  earning  her  own  living  knows 
very  well  that  money  does  not  fall  into  her  purse  out  of 
the  sky." 

Dick's  heart  sank  within  him.  Was  this  the  large  sym- 
pathy; the  sweet,  serious,  strong  thought  which  he  was 
looking  for  in  the  companion  of  his  life,  and  believed 
he  had  found  in  her?  Of  all  forms  of  newspaper  work, 
the  most  objectionable  and  repellent  to  him,  was  inter- 
viewing. He  thought  it  an  impertinent  intrusion  upon 
a  man's  personality,  a  sort  of  mental  hold-up  and  purse 
picking  that  no  honest  man  would  engage  in,  if  he  could 
help  it.  His  embarrassment  was  so  evident  that  Nita,  in 
her  turn,  looked  surprised,  and  asked: 

"  Have  I  said  something  stupid  ?  " 

He  cleared  his  throat ;  he  felt  something  choking  him. 

"  No,"  he  answered  slowly.  "  But  I  don't  believe  you 
quite  understand  what  my  work  means  to  me.  I  don't 
know  that  I  ever  talked  to  you  about  it,  have  I  ?  " 

"  I  think  you  have.  Something  about  principles  and 
standards,  isn't  it  ?  " 

She  was  speaking  with  cold  indifference,  but  her  quick 
eyes  noticed  the  deepening  of  the  expression  of  pain  on 
Dick's  face,  and  with  the  subtle  intuition  that  warns  a 
woman  when  she  is  treading  on  dangerous  ground,  she 
hastened  to  add  with  a  show  of  interest  and  sympathy: 

"  And  I  know,  too,  dear  Dick,  that  it  is  not  a  question 
of  mere  bread-winning  with  you.  You  feel  about  litera- 
ture as  I  do  about  the  stage,  that  it  has  a  message  to  de- 
liver in  addition  to  its  function  of  entertaining,  and  that  its 
beauty  and  strength  are  increased  by  the  reach  and  no- 
bility of  the  message." 

The  pain  in  Dick's  face  vanished  in  a  moment,  and  with 
it  the  mute  intolerable  despair  which  accompanies  the 
consciousness  of  high  aims  ignored  or  misunderstood  by 
those  we  love.  She  stood  level  again  with  him  on  his 


258  THE  TRELOARS 

highest  plane,  and  he  felt  so  grateful  that  he  could  have 
fallen  at  her  feet  and  kissed  the  hem  of  her  gown. 

"  Nita,  my  love,  you  have  made  me  so  happy.  You 
can  understand  without  telling,  and  that  is  the  finest 
test  of  comradeship.  That  one  indispensable  thing  in 
love  and  friendship,  I  divined  in  you  when  I  first  met 
you,  and  I  should  be  the  unhappiest  man  in  the  world, 
if  you  failed  me  there." 

"  I  am  not  going  to  fail  you  in  anything,  dear." 

She  stroked  the  hand  which  he  had  slipped  about  her 
waist  and  smiled  at  him  in  the  way  that  melted  all  his 
will  into  wax  in  her  hands.  "  I  am  going  to  help  you. 
That  is  the  one  grace  I  can  find  in  the  hateful  years  that 
make  me  your  senior.  I  can  speak  to  you  out  of  an  ex- 
perience which  you  have  not  had.  I  can  say  of  some 
enticing  path:  I've  wandered  there;  it  ends  in  a  green- 
scummed  pond.  There  is  no  broad  outlook  of  sky  and 
road  to  be  found  that  way.  May  I  speak  to  you  of  one  of 
these  enticing  little  false  roads  which  you  feel  inclined  to 
strike  into  ?  " 

"  You  know  you  may." 

The  sweet,  subtle  flattery  of  her  solicitude  warmed  him 
like  sunshine,  and  he  needed  the  warmth.  He  needed  the 
full,  generous,  sympathetic  understanding  of  what  was 
best  in  him  which  his  sister,  Margaret,  had  given  him  in 
such  rich  abundance,  the  absence  of  which  in  his  daily 
life,  he  had  not  yet  missed,  engrossed  as  he  was  by  his 
passion. 

"  Well,  then,  Dick,  you  know  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  mistaking  one's  own  little  particular  unit  of 
truth  for  something  much  more  important  and  general 
than  it  is.  In  short,  we  may  mistake  it  for  the  ztfiole 
truth,  and  the  only  way  to  clear  up  one's  mind  about  that 
is  to  see  life  from  as  many  angles  as  possible,  to  rid  one's 
self  of  provincialism,  to  lose  the  personal  in  the  general. 
Now,  you  are  inclined  to  do  exactly  the  contrary;  you 
want  to  strike  into  a  little  by-path  away  from  the  noise 
of  the  world  to  listen,  like  another  Joan  of  Arc,  to  celes- 


THE  TRELOARS  259 

tial  voices  inaudible  to  any  ear  but  your  own;  and  you 
can't  translate  them  to  others,  because  you  can't  at  the 
same  time  lend  them  your  ears.  Wouldn't  it  be  a  wise 
thing  to  acquaint  yourself  with  the  public  ear  and  learn 
what  sort  of  music  pleases  it  ?  " 

"  I  know  the  public  ear  very  well,"  said  Dick,  impa- 
tiently. "  It's  the  ear  of  an  ass,  and  the  music  which 
pleases  it  is  braying." 

"  There  you  are !  "  said  Nita,  coloring,  "  calling  names 
because  you  can't  answer  a  civil  question." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  Nita ;  but  your  advice  is  exactly 
like  Mr.  Cressy's.  He  told  me  when  I  first  went  to  him 
last  spring  that  I  wasn't  in  touch  with  the  common  peo- 
ple, that  I  ought  to  select  a  boarding  house  where  I  could 
meet  them  daily,  live  with  them  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
learn  their  thoughts,  their  ambitions,  their  way  of  looking 
at  life ;  —  in  short,  turn  a  camera  on  them,  because  mod- 
ern literature  is  using  the  laboratory  method.  Well,  the 
less  said  about  that,  the  better.  We  had  drunks  and  dis- 
orderlies picked  up  in  Black  Marias  on  our  street,  and 
all  I  got  out  of  my  experience  was  disgust  and  a  feeling 
of  being  immensely  bored;  so  that  having  lived  in  that 
sort  of  thing  actually,  I  shall  not  reproduce  it  and  label 
it  literature,  nor  waste  my  time  over  anybody  else's  maud- 
lin reproduction  of  it. 

"  I  brought  home  with  me  to-day  a  very  encouraging 
piece  of  literary  criticism.  It  is  called  The  New 
Laokoon.  The  writer  says  that  '  if  all  the  arts  are  rest- 
less and  impressionistic  in  our  day,  it  is  because  the  peo- 
ple who  practise  these  arts,  and  for  whom  they  are  prac- 
tised, are  themselves  living  in  an  impressionistic  flutter. 
If  the  arts  lack  dignity,  centrality,  repose,  it  is  because 
the  men  of  the  present  have  no  center,  no  sense  of  any- 
thing fixed  or  permanent,  either  within  or  without  them-^ 
selves,  that  they  may  oppose  to  the  flux  of  phenomenon 
and  the  torrent  of  impression.'  That's  exactly  my  view 
of  the  case,  Nita.  Instead  of  running  around  to  ask  how 
it  stands  with  other  men,  a  man  should  stay  at  home 


260  THE  TRELOARS 

with  his  own  mind  once  in  a  while.     So  I  don't  think  that 

'  I  can  get  anything  out  of  New  York  that  I  can't  get  here. 

I  don't  need  to  know  any  more  of  the  baseness,  poverty, 

;    and  cynical  brutality  of  life.    What  I  do  need  is  to  pre- 

[   serve,  as  sacredly  as  I  can,  my  faith  in  humanity.     I  need 

,    leisure,  tranquillity,  and  you  by  my  side  full  of  happiness 

and  confidence  in  me." 

Nita  rose  from  her  chair  with  a  burst  of  hysterical 
laughter  that  set  Dick  to  staring  at  her  with  astonishment 
and  pain. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  that,  Nita?  " 

She  continued  to  laugh  till  the  tears  streamed  down  her 
cheeks,  then  wiping  her  eyes,  she  said: 

"  O,  I  think  it  is  the  funniest  thing  in  the  world  that 
you  and  I  are  married!  perfectly  ridiculous!  No,  no, 
don't  try  to  stop  me.  I  shall  cry  in  earnest,  if  I  don't 
laugh,  and  it  is  much  pleasanter  to  laugh.  Perfectly 
ridiculous!"  she  repeated  again  with  a  new  burst  of 
laughter,  wiping  her  eyes  with  her  handkerchief.  Then 
she  suddenly  straightened  her  face,  and  said: 

"  Now,  Dick,  I  am  going  to  be  serious  again,  this  time 
very  serious.  We're  going  to  discuss  New  York  from 
another  point  of  view.  Granted  that  you  don't  need  the 
change,  suppose  that  /  do,  what  then  ?  " 

She  caught  him  in  that  moment  of  acutely  painful  be- 
wilderment and  despair,  when  a  man  in  love  has  only 
one  wish  in  the  presence  of  the  woman  he  loves,  and  that 
is  to  please  her,  so  he  said: 

"  Then,  we  shall  go  to  New  York,  of  course." 

They  went  to  New  York. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

FOR  a  time  Nita  was  all  sweetness  once  more,  and  full 
of  the  bright,  sparkling  humor  which  made  her  so  ad- 
mirable a  companion,  when  she  chose  to  be;  and  Dick, 
who  reflected  her  moods,  as  the  sea  does  the  sky,  was 


THE  TRELOARS  261 

bright  and  happy,  too,  and  forgot  that  he  was  no  longer 
his  own  master,  forgot  that  he  had  entrusted  his  happi- 
ness to  caprice,  forgot  that  the  work  which  he  had  to  do 
required,  first  of  all,  tranquillity  of  mind  and  large  leis- 
ure. 

He  was  not  long  allowed  to  forget  all  these  things  when 
he  got  home.  At  first,  Nita  felt,  again,  the  charm  of  the 
lovely  home  and  its  lovely  surroundings,  and  two  or  three 
days  of  delightful  comradeship  followed.  Then,  her 
mood  changed;  restlessness,  irritability,  dissatisfaction 
returned,  manifesting  themselves  in  a  variety  of  unex- 
pected ways  that  drove  Dick  to  his  wits'  ends  to  please 
her.  She  wanted  a  piano ;  it  would  be  something  to 
amuse  her  while  he  was  away.  He  bought  her  a  piano, 
and  hired  a  music-master  to  give  her  lessons.  In  a  short 
time,  she  quarreled  with  him;  he  was  really  growing  in- 
solently familiar  with  her,  she  said,  and  when  he  was  dis- 
missed, she  abandoned  her  music.  Then  she  took  to 
sketching  and  water-colors,  tiring  herself  out  with  long 
walks  in  search  of  picturesque  views,  so  long  as  Dick 
implored  her  to  be  careful  of  herself.  She  kept  them  up 
until  Dick  concealed  his  anxiety,  and  ceased  to  speak  of 
them  to  her.  Dick  had  inadvertently  discovered  that  she 
enjoyed  alarming  him,  but  he  was  still  very  far  from 
guessing  her  real  state  of  mind  until  one  Sunday  after- 
noon in  late  spring. 

They  were  taking  a  little  walk  along  the  bay.  Dick  was 
enjoying  it  and  pointing  out  a  pretty  wooded  ravine  in 
the  mountains  across  the  water,  when  Nita  suddenly 
slipped  on  a  flat  wet  stone.  Dick  caught  her,  preventing 
her  from  falling,  but  she  persisted  in  declaring  that  she 
had  wrenched  her  ankle  and  was  in  great  pain.  It  was 
impossible  for  her  to  walk.  Dick  was  very  much  dis- 
tressed, as  they  were  at  some  distance  from  the  house. 
It  was  a  beautiful  April  day,  the  air  clear  as  crystal,  warm 
and  sunny.  The  low  mountains  on  the  opposite  shore 
were  green  to  their  summits  and  perfectly  reflected  in  the 
quiet  blue  waters  at  their  base.  The  rocky,  sinuous  shore, 


262  THE  TRELOARS 

with  its  stretches  of  gleaming  white  sand  between  the 
rocks,  afforded  many  sheltered  places  for  resting,  and 
choosing  one  of  them,  Dick  spread  a  shawl  over  the  rock, 
and  helped  Nita  to  reach  it.  She  was  limping  very  badly, 
her  face  expressing  a  brave  effort  to  control  an  outcry 
of  pain.  As  soon  as  she  was  seated,  Dick  knelt  at  her 
feet,  took  off  her  shoe  and  stocking,  and  making  a  com- 
press of  his  handkerchief,  bound  it  tightly  around  her 
ankle,  put  on  her  stocking  over  it,  and  left  her  shoe  un- 
buttoned on  her  foot. 

"  I  am  going  to  get  myself  a  stock  of  medical  books 
and  directions  for  first  aid  to  the  wounded,"  he  said, 
rising  from  his  kneeling  posture,  "  then  I'll  be  ready  for 
all  emergency  cases.  Does  it  feel  a  little  better,  love?" 

"  It  pains  very  much,  Dick,"  said  Nita,  biting  her  lip 
and  stooping  over  to  rub  her  ankle. 

"  I  am  so  sorry,  sweetheart.  Now  you  must  just  stay 
here,  while  I  run  home  and  come  back  again  with  Kurita 
and  a  chair.  We'll  carry  you  back  to  the  house  on  that, 
so  you  won't  have  to  touch  your  foot  to  the  ground,  till 
you  can  do  it  without  pain.  Lean  back  against  the  rock, 
dear.  Here,  I  am  going  to  make  you  a  cushion  with  my 
coat."  He  took  off  his  coat  and  deftly  folding  it,  placed 
it  at  her  back. 

"  Does  that  feel  comfortable  ?  " 

"  Yes,  thank  you,  it's  just  right,  but  you'll  be  cold  with- 
out your  coat,  won't  you  ?  " 

"  No,  not  a  bit  of  it.  Now,  you  won't  be  lonesome 
while  I  am  gone,  with  that  lovely  view  before  you,  will 
you?  I  wish  you  had  your  sketch  book  and  colors." 

He  stooped  and  kissed  her,  he  never  left  her  without 
kissing  her,  then  hurried  away  in  the  direction  of  the 
house,  his  heart  filled  with  tender  pity  and  regret. 

He  was  no  sooner  out  of  sight,  concealed  by  a  bend  in 
the  hilly  road,  than  she  removed  the  shoe  and  stocking 
from  the  lame  foot,  took  the  bandage  from  the  ankle,  put 
on  her  stocking  and  shoe  again,  buttoning  the  latter  with 
a  wire  hairpin.  A  peculiar  brightness  gleamed  in  her 


THE  TRELOARS  263 

eye,  as  she  rose  from  her  rocky  seat  and  looked  about 
her  with  the  air  of  a  prisoner  escaped  from  a  guard. 
She  had  not  in  the  least  hurt  herself,  and  she  walked 
briskly  about  from  stone  to  stone,  stopping  now  and 
then  to  watch  a  crab,  or  to  examine  the  bright  orange- 
colored  lichen  stains  on  the  gray  rocks.  It  would  have 
been  impossible  for  her  to  say,  herself,  why  she  had 
feigned  this  sprained  ankle.  She  had  acted  as  impul- 
sively as  a  spoiled  child  that  throws  himself  on  the  floor, 
because  he  is  denied  some  indulgence.  She  had  not 
wished  to  take  this  walk.  It  was  Dick  who  had  insisted 
upon  it  against  her  will,  because  he  had  thought  that  the 
fresh  air  would  do  her  good.  She  must  take  a  walk 
regularly,  every  day.  He  had  been  consulting  physicians 
and  reading  medical  books  and  was  in  possession  of  quite 
a  number  of  rules  concerning  diet  and  exercise  to  which 
he  was  trying  to  induce  her  to  conform.  But  by  an  un- 
happy incapacity  to  live  according  to  anything  but  cap- 
rice, Nita  was  in  a  chronic  state  of  revolt.  If  ever  she 
desired  to  take  a  walk,  it  was  always  just  when  Dick  sat 
down  to  some  work  among  his  books;  and  when  Dick 
was  ready,  she  was  intensely  interested  in  something  else, 
and  not  inclined  to  go  anywhere. 

Dick's  patience  and  unalterable  good  humor  prevented 
this  incompatibility  from  breaking  out  into  open  quarrel- 
ing, so  that  there  was  generally  an  outer  show  of  smooth 
agreement,  no  matter  in  what  contrary  directions  the  un- 
der currents  were  roughly  flowing.  Now,  nothing  more 
delighted  Nita  than  to  discover  Dick  at  fault  somewhere, 
and  when  the  little  stumble  gave  her  a  chance  to  show 
him  that  he  ought  not  to  have  insisted  upon  her  taking 
this  walk,  she  had  involuntarily  reacted  to  it,  as  being 
the  most  unanswerable  way  of  saying,  "  I  told  you  so !  " 

She  quietly  laughed  to  herself,  reflecting  on  Dick's  cha- 
grin and  solicitude,  saying  to  herself :  "  It  serves  him 
right.  He  knew  I  didn't  want  to  come.  Perhaps  he  will 
learn  after  a  while  that  I  have  a  will  of  my  own  that  has  as 
much  a  reason  for  being  as  his."  For,  with  that  obstinate 


264  THE  TRELOARS 

blindness  of  a  sick  soul  which  is  perhaps  more  pitiable 
than  the  blindness  of  the  eyes,  Nita  could  not  see  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  self-interest  which  dominated  her  own 
feelings.  To  her,  Dick's  patience  was  obstinacy;  his 
solicitude  about  her  —  his  determination  to  have  his  own 
way;  his  steady  persistent  attention  to  his  work  —  a 
selfish  inordinate  ambition  to  which  he  was  willing  to 
sacrifice  her  comfort  and  pleasure.  Well,  there  would 
come  a  day  when  he  would  regret  it.  At  present,  she 
was  forced  to  submit  to  these  hateful  bonds,  but  once  her 
child  was  born,  she  would  know  how  to  regain  her  free- 
dom. Freedom!  How  beautiful  it  sounded,  it  was  one 
of  the  unconscious  joys  and  privileges  like  the  absence  of 
pain. 

Dick  hurried  home  with  long,  half-running  strides, 
vexed  with  that  singular  turn  in  his  affairs  which  always 
seemed  to  put  him  in  the  wrong,  when  he  most  wished 
to  be  right.  He  had  really  given  up  his  own  plans  of 
work  for  the  afternoon,  to  take  this  walk  with  Nita, 
feeling  that  she  needed  this  exercise  in  the  wholesome  air, 
and  he  had  argued  away  her  objections  with  a  persist- 
ency which  he  never  would  have  shown,  had  he  been 
prompted  by  purely  selfish  motives.  Now,  he  wished 
with  all  his  heart  that  they  had  stayed  at  home;  for  a 
sprain,  if  it  were  serious,  meant  three  or  four  weeks  of  in- 
activity. On  reaching  home,  he  telephoned  at  once  for  a 
surgeon,  and  having  selected  a  chair  for  Kurita  to  carry 
back  with  him,  he  was  just  closing  the  door,  when  he 
heard  his  name  called,  and  turning  round,  he  saw  Max 
Gietmann  before  him.  He  held  out  his  hand  cordially,  he 
had  not  seen  Max  for  several  months." 

"  Mighty  glad  to  see  you,  Max,"  he  said.  "  You've 
come  in  the  nick  of  time.  I  am  just  leaving  the  house  to 
go  down  to  the  shore  to  carry  my  wife  home.  I've  left 
her  there  with  a  sprained  ankle.  Will  you  go  along  with 
us,  or  will  you  stay  here  till  we  come  back?  We  won't 
be  long." 

"  I'll  go  with  you.     I'm  awfully  sorry  about  the  acci- 


THE  TRELOARS  265 

dent.  I  hope  it  isn't  serious,  but  a  sprain  is  a  tedious 
thing  to  get  over.  How  did  it  happen  ?  " 

"  She  slipped  on  a  wet  stone,  and  trying  to  save  herself 
a  fall,  gave  her  ankle  a  twist." 

"  Have  you  a  surgeon  or  a  physician  in  the  neighbor- 
hood ? "  Max  asked,  as  they  started  on  a  brisk  walk 
back  toward  Nita. 

"  No,  but  I've  'phoned  to  the  city  for  one." 

"  That's  right.  If  it  is  serious,  you  know  that  she's 
having  proper  attention ;  and  if  it  isn't,  you  have  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  it,  and  being  free  from  worry.  Well, 
how  are  you  getting  on,  otherwise  ?  " 

"Matrimonially,   or  professionally?" 

"  Professionally,  of  course ;  matrimonially,  the  honey- 
moon isn't  on  the  wane  yet  or  ought  not  to  be;  so  you 
may  spare  me,  if  you  please,  any  post-nuptial  rhap- 
sodies." 

"  Well,  as  to  journalism,  I  have  about  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  is  not  my  forte.  I  am  not  taking  kindly 
to  advice  of  which  Cressy  continues  to  be  very  liberal. 
Journalism  is  a  trade  it  seems ;  there  is  no  room  in  it  for 
a  man  with  individuality.  If  he  wants  to  say  what  he 
thinks,  he  must  do  it  independently,  and  speak  to  the 
few  who  can  hear.  How's  the  Dawn  coming  on  ? " 

Max  lifted  his  hat  and  ran  his  hand  through  his  hair. 

"  Well,  Dick,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  the  Darwn  is  near- 
ing  its  sunset.  Not  that  it  has  failed,  for  it  hasn't.  It 
was  started  as  a  faithful  experiment  in  free  expression, 
and,  as  such,  is  absolutely  successful.  You'd  be  sur- 
prised at  the  number  of  letters  I  get  from  all  over  the 
country  expressing  delight  in  it.  Of  course,  I  don't  deny 
that  I  get  condemnatory  letters,  too ;  but  I  expected  that. 
America  isn't  quite  ripe  enough  to  put  so  original  an  ex- 
periment on  a  paying  basis,  at  once.  Your  people  are  too 
well  fed  and  too  well  dressed  to  think;  too  comfortable 
to  have  much  curiosity  about  ideas.  Any  silly  or  ex- 
travagant childishness  will  pass  with  them,  if  it  just  blus- 
ters a  little  and  swears.  A  thought  is  too  big  for  you. 


266  THE  TRELOARS 

You  are  all  running  at  a  high  pressure  speed  with  well- 
oiled  wheels  on  a  smooth  road,  and  you  don't  care  for 
anything  but  going.  You  call  that  progress.  It  would 
do  you  goo<i  to  run  against  a  snag  and  get  a  good  jolt. 
It  would  make  you  sit  up  and  rub  your  heads  and  think. 
And  the  jolt's  coming,  Dick.  Mark  my  words.  There 
is  a  seething  unrest,  a  deep  distrust  among  the  nations 
everywhere.  The  sky  is  heavy  with  clouds.  A  storm  is 
coming  up.  I  want  to  be  at  home,  Dick,  when  it  comes." 

"  Max,  you're  an  alarmist." 

"  That's  right,  Dick ;  but  don't  be  mealy-mouthed.  Call 
me  a  damn  fool,  outright.  I  am  quite  used  to  that  now. 
Tell  me  that  I  don't  know  that  two  and  two  make  four, 
that  I  don't  know  the  color  of  a  storm  cloud  when  I  see 
it." 

"You've  been  reading  von  Bernhardi.  I  glanced 
through  his  book.  It  is  an  anachronism  —  we've  gone  be- 
yond thinking  of  war  as  something  highly  desirable,  virile 
and  noble.  I  believe  that  a  general  European  war  is  ab- 
solutely impossible.  We're  too  civilized  for  that." 

"  O,  you  do,  do  you  ? "  said  Max  with  sharp,  hard 
bluntness.  "  You  don't  think,  then,  that  a  nation  in  self- 
defense  might  be  seized  by  the  same  desire  which  you 
felt  when  you  threw  the  little  Italian  over  the  table? 
You  weren't  too  civilized  to  express  your  disapproval  in  a 
highly  uncivilized  manner.  What  right  have  you  to  ex- 
pect more  refinement  from  a  nation,  not  on  a  question  of 
morals  and  taste,  but  on  a  question  of  life  and  death?  " 

It  was  Dick's  turn  to  color,  and  he  did  it  very 
perceptibly,  as  he  answered  frankly: 

"  I  guess  you've  got  me  there,  Max,  but  I  have  too 
great  a  respect  for  the  philosophical  dignity  of  the  land  of 
Kant,  Fichte,  Hegel,  and  the  calm,  wise  Goethe,  to  sup- 
pose that  you  should  all  go  stark  mad  at  once;  for 
war  after  all  is  nothing  but  madness.  What!"  Dick 
stopped  short,  and  his  face  expressed  a  happy  surprise. 
"  Why,  there's  Nita  climbing  around  on  the  rocks.  She 
hasn't  hurt  herself  after  all,"  and  he  started  forward  im- 


THE  TRELOARS  267 

pulsively,  leaving  Max  and   Kurita,  quite  in  the  rear. 

"  You  haven't  hurt  yourself  ?  "  he  shouted,  as  he  ap- 
proached her.  "  But  take  care,  or  you  will  do  it.  Here, 
give  me  your  hand." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  she  took  it,  smiling  at  him, 
and  carefully  descended  from  the  irregular  masses  of 
rock  among  which  she  had  been  climbing. 

"  You  haven't  been  gone  long,"  she  said.  "  Who  is 
that  man  with  Kurita?  Why,  it  is  Max  Gietmann.  I 
am  so  glad  to  see  you,"  she  continued,  holding  out  her 
hand  to  Max.  "  You  are  getting  to  be  almost  a  stranger, 
and  there  is  no  place  where  you  ought  to  feel  so  much 
at  home  as  with  us." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Max.  "  That's  very  kind  of  you. 
I  assure  you  that  there  is  no  place  where  I  do  feel  so 
much  at  home.  But  will  you  kindly  explain  to  me  how 
it  is  that  I  find  you  climbing  around  here  like  a  goat,  when 
I  expected  to  see  you  sitting  forlorn  and  helpless  with  a 
sprained  ankle  ?  " 

Nita  laughed  merrily. 

"  Well,  I'll  just  frankly  tell  you  how  that  happened. 
Dick  is  so  superlatively  careful  of  me,  that  to  go  out 
walking  with  him  is  like  being  three  years  old,  under 
the  care  of  a  highly  recommended  nurse-maid.  I  mustn't 
do  this,  and  I  mustn't  do  that,  for  fear  it  will  hurt  me. 
I  am  allowed  to  breathe  naturally,  but  if  there  were  any 
other  way  to  breathe,  I  should  have  to  do  it  that  way.  I 
am  allowed  to  walk  staidly  along  hand  in  hand  with  my 
nurse.  Now  look  at  those  lovely  tempting  rocks, 
wouldn't  anybody  want  to  climb  them?  I  knew  Dick 
wouldn't  let  me,  so  I  sprained  my  ankle  on  purpose  to  get 
rid  of  him,  and  took  the  sprain  off  as  soon  as  he  was  out 
of  sight.  Dick,  you'll  find  your  handkerchief  carefully 
folded  and  put  back  into  your  coat  pocket,  there." 

She  pointed  to  a  rock  on  which  she  had  left  his  coat, 
and  Dick,  without  a  word,  but  with  a  scarlet  face  and 
an  ominous  gravity,  picked  it  up  and  handing  the  shawl 
to  Kurita  said: 


268  THE  TRELOARS 

"  You  will  take  this  and  the  chair,  and  go  back  home 
with  me." 

Then,  without  looking  at  Nita,  he  turned  to  Max,  say- 
ing, "  Max,  will  you  be  kind  enough  to  see  that  Mrs. 
Treloar  gets  home  all  right.  Take  your  time  to  it,  you 
needn't  hurry ;  I  must  go  back  to  pay  the  doctor  for  the 
unnecessary  trouble  that  I've  put  him  to." 

"You  didn't  send  for  a  doctor!  How  silly!"  ex- 
claimed Nita. 

Dick  made  no  reply,  but  flinging  his  coat  over  his 
shoulder,  he  hurried  homeward  as  rapidly  as  he  had 
walked  the  distance  once  before,  but  with  far  different 
emotions. 

As  soon  as  he  was  out  of  hearing,  Nita  said  to  Max,  as 
they  started  homeward :  "  See  ?  He's  angry  because  I 
haven't  hurt  myself.  Marriage  is  an  appalling  thing, 
Max.  You  don't  mind  my  calling  you  Max,  do  you? 
It  slipped  out  involuntarily,  because  I  am  so  used  to 
hearing  Dick  call  you  Max." 

"  O,  no.     Call  me  Max,  if  you  like.    /  like  it." 

"  Then,  I  shall  do  so  after  this ;  and  please  call  me 
Nita.  What  I  was  going  to  say  is  this.  I  am  very  sure 
that  there  would  be  fewer  divorces  if  there  were  a  law 
forbidding  husbands  and  wives  to  live  continuously  to- 
gether. They  should  be  obliged  to  separate  temporarily 
several  times  a  year;  not  too  long  at  a  time,  of  course; 
for,  in  that  case,  they  would  forget  each  other,  but  just 
long  enough  to  restore  their  shattered  nerves,  and  en- 
able them  to  endure  their  being  shattered  again." 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better  if  there  were  no  marriages  at 
all?" 

"  Undoubtedly !  at  any  rate,  for  such  people  as  I  am, 
and  as  I  fancy  you  are.  I  am  no  more  fit  to  be  married 
than  yonder  sea-gull.  I  am  very  fond  of  Dick.  I  really 
am.  I  never  would  have  married  him  if  I  hadn't  been; 
but  I  am  fonder  of  him,  when  he  is  away  from  me  than 
when  he  is  with  me.  That  is  why  I  never  should  have 


THE  TRELOARS  269 

married  him,  in  spite  of  my  fondness.  His  goodness 
irritates  me,  for  he  is  good;  but  it  is  not  my  kind  of 
goodness.  I  am  a  born  anarchist.  He  is  a  born  con- 
formist. When  I  see  a  sign  up  saying :  '  Keep  off  the 
grass,'  I  have  an  irresistible  desire  to  get  on  it.  Dick 
would  go  half  a  mile  round  it,  out  of  his  way,  rather 
than  trample  on  it.  Metaphorically,  then,  I  am  always 
wanting  to  get  on  Dick's  grass  and  roll  all  over  it,  pull 
up  his  signs  and  throw  them  on  to  the  kindling  pile. 
When  I  do  it  he  patiently  puts  'em  up  again,  and  sows 
some  more  grass-seed.  It  is  as  much  a  part  of  his  na- 
ture to  build  as  it  is  mine  to  pull  down  —  so  we  are  mu-. 
tually  destructive.  I  was  always  like  that,  even  as  a 
child.  As  soon  as  a  task  was  called  a  duty,  I  hated  it, 
and  refused  to  do  it.  Duty  and  don't  are  absolutely 
nauseating  words  to  me,  and  '  do '  it,  too,  when  it  is 
put  in  the  form  of  a  command;  but  really  I  am  not  at 
all  bad  at  heart.  I  can't  bear  the  sight  of  suffering  or 
pain.  Kurita  cut  his  finger  the  other  day  and  when  I 
started  to  put  a  rag  around  it  I  fainted.  Fortunately  my 
maid  was  near  at  hand,  or  I  should  really  have  had  a  bad 
fall." 

"And  yet  you  don't  in  the  least  mind  paining  Dick 
by  an  assumed  fall." 

"  O,  there  is  no  blood  shed  or  bones  broken  in  that, 
and  if  Dick  is  vexed  with  me,  it  will  do  him  good  to  get 
a  little  acid  poured  into  his  disposition.  He  is  entirely 
too  sweet  and  good  for  human  nature's  daily  food.  A 
monotony  of  sunshine  is  as  trying  as  a  monotony  of 
clouds  and  rain.  Who  was  it  that  said  it  was  difficult 
for  him  to  live,  if  he  could  not  do  it  in  the  greatest  man- 
ner?" 

"  I  don't  know." 

"Well,  I  find,  too,  that  life  is  worthless  as  a  mo- 
notonous routine.  The  stir  and  go  of  modern  life  are  in 
my  blood.  I  cannot  stagnate.  I  need  a  great  aim  or 
wanting  that,  the  sting  and  lash  of  pain,  adventure,  won- 
der, an  ever  new  horizon  to  make  life  worth  while." 


270  THE  TRELOARS 

Nita  was  feeling  very  heroic  and  superior  as  she  said  this, 
and  the  bright  color  tinged  her  cheeks,  and  her  eyes 
sparkled.  "  Dick  can't  understand  that.  He  would  be 
willing  to  stay  here  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  count  it 
a  privilege  to  watch  his  garden  grow,  with  me  beside  him 
to  hold  out  my  apron  to  catch  the  peas  and  beans,  when 
he  picks  them.  He  should  have  married  a  little  country 
girl  who  could  lose  herself  in  him  and  think  it  a  gain. 
I  can't.  There  is  too  much  of  me  to  lose  myself  in  any- 
body. I  am  versatile  and  great  enough  for  others  to 
lose  themselves  in  me." 

Nita  turned  her  flushed  face  towards  Max  with  a  de- 
fiant flash  in  her  bright  eyes.  Consistently,  Max  ought 
to  have  entirely  approved  of  her  attitude;  but  his  in- 
stincts were  stronger  than  his  acquired  opinions,  and 
he  contented  himself  with  saying: 

"  You  are  a  complete  antithesis  to  Dick's  sister,  Mar- 
garet, aren't  you  ?  " 

"  Dick's  sister,  Margaret ! "  repeated  Nita,  with  an 
accent  of  bitter  contempt.  "  I  should  hope  so !  She 
is  a  woman  so  shadow-like  in  her  personality  that  she 
seems  to  have  withdrawn  herself  to  make  room  for 
others,  until  she  occupies  no  space  at  all." 

"  Excuse  me !  She  doesn't  in  the  least  strike  me 
that  way.  Of  all  the  people  I  have  ever  known,  she  is 
the  one  whom  I  find  it  most  difficult  to  forget.  It  is 
not  so  much  the  impression  of  personality  that  she  gives 
me,  as  the  impression  of  an  atmosphere,  something  like 
that  of  a  spring  day  such  as  this  is,  fresh,  vivifying, 
youthful.  She  is  one  of  those  tranquil,  luminous  women 
who  will  never  have  anything  of  age  about  them  but  their 
years." 

Nita  opened  her  eyes   in  astonishment, 

"  Why,  Max  Gietmann !  You  are  in  love  with  Mar- 
garet Treloar !  " 

Max  reddened,  stooped  to  pick  up  a  pebble,  and  turn- 
ing, threw  it  into  the  water,  then  he  faced  her  with  a 
peculiar  smile. 


THE  TRELOARS  271 

"  No,  I  am  not  in  love  with  her.  I  may  have  been 
once.  I  don't  know ;  but  your  experience  with  Dick 
proves  to  me  that  it  was  a  wise  chance  which  separated 
us.  In  the  long  run  I  should  never  have  been  able  to 
live  up  to  the  requirements  any  more  than  you.  There 
are  men  and  women  who  were  never  designed  by  nature 
for  the  calmness  of  domestic  life,  whether  from  a  super- 
abundance of  energy,  a  hatred  of  routine,  or  a  simple  de- 
ficiency in  the  power  of  loving  —  I  can't  tell.  You  and 
I  belong  to  that  class." 

"  I  know  it,"  was  the  emphatic  reply.  "  Now  you  can 
understand  how  I  was  capable  of  lowering  myself  to 
play  such  a  mean  little  trick  as  I  did.  It  is  the  in- 
stinctive prick  of  my  conscience  that  makes  me  do  a 
thing  like  that.  In  marrying  Dick,  I  feel  that  I  have 
committed  a  crime  against  myself,  a  crime  against  my 
genius,  and  that  feeling  makes  me  unkind  to  my  ac- 
complice in  the  crime.  I  should  never  forgive  him  if  he 
treated  me,  as  I  have  sometimes  treated  him;  and  that 
he  can  forgive  me,  makes  me  despise  him  at  times. 
There  are  things  which  we  have  no  right  to  forgive  in 
others,  because  it  makes  them  cruel  and  insolent  towards 
us.  But  of  course,  I  can't  live  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
rage,  so  I  have  intermittent  periods  of  surface  calm, 
when  I  make  life  tolerable  to  him,  poor  fellow,"  she 
laughed  lightly,  and  then  went  on.  "  I  don't  know  how 
it  will  all  end.  Just  now  I  am  most  unfortunately  tied 
to  my  stake ;  but  I  shan't  always  be  tied.  I  may  need  in 
my  life  to  turn  to  you,  once  more,  and  you'll  help  me, 
won't  you  ?  " 

Max  shrugged  his  shoulders  enigmatically  and  re- 
plied : 

"  Perhaps  you'd  better  not  count  on  me.  Of  course, 
if  I  am  where  you  can  reach  me,  I  am  always  at  your 
service;  but  I  am  on  the  point  of  leaving  America." 

"  Leaving  America !  " 

"  Yes,  European  affairs  are  approaching  a  crisis,  and 
I  shouldn't  be  satisfied  with  being  a  neutral  spectator 
over  here." 


272  THE  TRELOARS 

"What  sort  of  crisis?" 

"  A  crisis  in  which  Germany  will  no  longer  submit 
to  being  a  passive  spectator  of  the  plots  of  her  jealous 
enemies." 

"  Plots  of  enemies  ?  Who  are  her  enemies  ?  I 
thought  we  were  all  either  openly  or  tacitly  acknowl- 
edging Germany's  intellectual  supremacy.  Aren't  we 
following  her  leading  speculations  in  philosophy  and 
science?  Aren't  we  admiringly  working  out  her  educa- 
tional theories,  and  kindergartening  everything?" 

"  But  the  world  isn't  viewing  with  the  same  com- 
placency her  rapid  strides  toward  commercial  su- 
premacy, and  it  will  not  be  long  before  she  will  be  forced 
to  prove  that  she  can  also  boast  of  military  supremacy." 

"  You  don't  mean  that  there  is  going  to  be  a  war?  " 

"  I  mean  that  very  thing." 

"  Really  ?    Have  you  spoken  to  Dick  about  it  ?  " 

"Yes,  but  of  course  he  is  incredulous,  as  all  people 
are  who  haven't  been  closely  following  international  poli- 
tics." 

"  And  do  you  leave  us  soon  ?  " 

"Yes,  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  start  in  two  or  three 
weeks." 

"And  your  new  literary  venture,  the  Dawn?" 

"  The  Dawn  will  take  care  of  itself.  That  is,  the  lit- 
erary and  artistic  revolution  for  which  it  stands  is  well 
started.  It  will  move  rapidly." 

Nita  smiled. 

"  Of  course,  there's  no  use  in  our  talking  at  all,  un- 
less we  speak  frankly,  is  there  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not !  " 

"  All  right !  You  know  that  I  am  no  more  a  stickler 
for  past  forms  than  you  are,  and  am  always  ready  to 
accept  anything  valuable  though  it  should  depreciate  the 
value  of  everything  that  I  had  hitherto  held  precious. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  not  so  thick-headed  that  I 
can't  see  through  a  hoax,  even  when  it  is  clever;  and 
yours  isn't  even  clever;  for  your  boasted  innovation  is 


THE  TRELOARS  273 

the  silliest,  most  transparent  hoax  that  ever  was  played 
on  an  innocent  public.  Formlessness,  ugliness,  geometri- 
cal art  are  as  primitive  as  the  first  rude  scratchings  and 
daubings  by  the  cave  men.  We've  grown  out  of  that 
thousands  of  years  ago.  Why,  then,  do  you  start  it 
again  in  the  name  of  the  future,  when  it's  hoary  with  an- 
tiquity? What  are  you  doing  this  for,  Max?  Now  be 
honest  with  me.  That's  the  bargain." 

He  looked  at  her  and  smiled  in  his  turn. 

"  What  am  I  doing  it  for  ?  Just  to  show  my  colossal 
contempt  for  the  world;  just  to  prove  to  my  satisfaction 
that  there  is  no  idiocy,  no  indecency,  no  blasphemy  that 
you  can't  make  it  swallow  with  its  eyes  shut,  if  you  only 
take  the  trouble  to  hypnotize  it.  You  can  be  an  hysteri- 
cal, mindless  old  woman  with  an  essentially  evil  nature 
and  found  a  new  religion  and  revive  witchcraft  in  the 
face  of  nineteenth  century  science;  you  can  be  as  desti- 
tute of  learning,  wit  and  sense  as  an  empty  broken  egg 
shell  and  dribble  your  feeble  rhythmless  prose,  and  be 
called  the  greatest  poet  of  your  age:  you  can  invent 
a  language  and  babble,  and  snivel  and  slabber  and  be  called 
a  genius;  you  can  paint  with  a  broom  stick  and  a  pair 
of  tongs  and  stir  up  the  mess  with  a  poker  and  be  called 
a  wonderful  artist;  you  can  run  your  feet  over  the 
piano  and  pound  the  keys  with  your  heels,  and  be  called 
a  marvelous  musician.  There  is  only  one  thing  you 
can't  do ;  you  can't  do  anything  with  real  sense  and  real 
power.  Nobody  wants  it;  so  I  started  the  Dawn  as  a 
colossal  jeer  at  the  world,  and  if  I  had  continued  it, 
I  should  have  had  the  world  at  my  feet.  I  don't  care 
enough  for  it.  There  are  volcanic  fires  ready  to  leap 
forth  in  Europe.  I  want  to  be  there  and  see  the  erup- 
tion." 

"  You  really  think  it's  coming  ?  " 

"  I  do." 

"Well,  now,  that  we  have  you  with  us  to-day,  I  am 
not  going  to  let  you  go,  before  you  have  made  us  a 
long  visit.  You  are  to  stay  to  dinner.  We  have  our 


274  THE  TRELOARS 

dinners  at  half  past  one  on  Sundays,  because  Dick  is  at 
home,  but  I'm  sure  that  we  can  find  something  appe- 
tizing. Your  war  news  is  quite  exhilarating.  I  am 
sure  you'll  want  to  discuss  it  more  fully  with  Dick." 

Max  did  not  need  a  second  invitation.  He  had  many 
things  yet  to  say  to  Dick,  and  he  was  not  certain  that 
he  would  have  another  opportunity  to  see  him  at  leisure. 
A  new  interest  possessed  him.  The  rebellious  discontent 
which  had  found  an  outlet  in  his  literary  venture  was 
no  longer  satisfied  with  so  ineffectual  an  expression  of 
itself,  and  was  crying  out  for  a  wider  field  and  a  more 
violent  form  of  activity;  and  the  man  who  had  volun- 
tarily denied  the  claims  of  patriotism  felt  the  blood  of  his 
country  stir  within  him  and  make  a  partisan  of  him  in 
spite  of  himself.  He  tried  again  to  enlist  Dick's  sym- 
pathies. He  believed  that  it  would  be  to  his  advantage 
to  keep  up  his  friendly  relations  with  Dick,  on  whom  he 
relied  for  trustworthy  communications  from  America, 
in  case  he  needed  any  information.  But  poor  Dick,  en- 
tirely obsessed  by  his  own  personal  wretchedness,  lent 
him  but  the  semblance  of  interested  attention.  The  crisis 
in  his  domestic  life  obscured  for  him  the  crisis  of  civiliza- 
tion. When  Max  was  gone,  he  could  hardly  have  told 
what  he  had  been  talking  about.  He  accompanied  him 
to  the  street-car. 

"  Please  say  good-by  for  me  to  your  father  and  your 
sisters,  Dick,  and  to  the  Parkers,  too.  Tell  them  I  was 
sorry  not  to  be  able  to  say  it  to  them  myself.  I  don't 
know  whether  we  shall  ever  meet  again.  I  hope  so.  At 
any  rate,  I  shall  write  you  from  the  other  side." 

"  Yes,  do,"  answered  Dick,  "  and  remember  that  none 
of  us  will  ever  forget  you." 

He  shook  hands  cordially  with  him,  and  watched  him, 
as  he  stood  smoking  a  cigar  on  the  rear  platform  of  the 
car,  till  he  was  out  of  sight.  He  wished  with  all  his  heart 
that  he  was  going  with  him,  far,  far  away,  anywhere, 
except  back  to  the  house,  no  longer  a  home  which  had 
been  paradise  to  him,  only  a  few  weeks  ago. 


THE  TRELOARS  275 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

WHEN  Dick  entered  the  house,  Nita  was  lying  on  a 
couch  in  the  drawing-room.  He  passed  through  the 
room  without  speaking  to  her  and  went  into  the  library. 
As  long  as  Max  had  been  with  them,  Nita  had  forced  him 
to  keep  up  a  show  of  friendliness  by  answering  questions 
which  she  took  pains  to  ask  him ;  but  he  had  avoided  look- 
ing at  her,  and  she  was  as  conscious  of  his  hostility,  as  if 
it  had  been  entirely  outspoken.  It  piqued  and  amused 
her,  but  did  not  at  all  alarm  her.  She  believed  that  she 
could  dispel  it  in  a  moment,  if  she  chose.  She  did  not 
choose  to  do  so.  She  was  curious  to  see  how  long  he 
could  hold  resentment  against  her.  She  herself  was  in- 
capable of  any  long  and  sullen  rancor ;  the  changeful  mo- 
bility of  her  moods,  leading  her  rapidly  from  one  emotion 
to  another  made  her  capable  of  being  gay,  sad,  irritable, 
angry,  in  an  hour.  This  mobility  made  Dick  despair  of 
ever  having  any  tranquil  assurance  that  when  he  left  her 
bright  and  sunny  in  the  morning  he  would  find  the  sun- 
shine and  the  brightness  on  his  return  in  the  evening. 
He  could  have  learned  to  adjust  himself  to  these  change- 
ful moods,  had  he  been  certain  that  beneath  their  shifting 
surface  there  was  a  strong  and  permanent  affection  in- 
capable of  disloyalty.  The  deliberate  malice  of  her 
caprice  to-day,  aggravated  by  the  humiliating  revelation 
of  it,  in  the  presence  of  Max  and  their  servant,  destroyed 
all  his  faith  in  her,  in  a  moment.  He  sat  alone  in  the 
library  while  the  dusk  of  evening  deepened  into  night; 
his  elbows  on  the  table,  his  head  buried  in  his  hands. 

"  Are  you  coming  to  bed,  Dick  ?  " 

Dick  started  violently  and  turned  quickly  around. 
Nita  stood  in  the  doorway  in  a  loose,  white  dressing 
gown ;  her  hair,  arranged  for  the  night,  hung  down  her 
back  in  a  long  heavy  braid ;  her  bare  feet  were  thrust  into 
knitted  slippers  of  soft,  white  wool. 

Dick  looked  at  her  in  utter  amazement.     How  could 


276  THE  TRELOARS 

she  speak  to  him  as  if  nothing  at  all  had  happened  be- 
tween them  ?  Was  she  acting,  again ;  or  was  she  simply  in- 
capable of  understanding  how  she  had  offended  him? 
As  he  did  not  reply,  she  said  to  him  with  a  touch  of  im- 
patience in  her  voice: 

"Well,  why  don't  you  say  something?" 

"  Because,  I  have  nothing  to  say,"  answered  Dick,  ris- 
ing from  his  chair,  and  turning  towards  the  window. 

"  O,  yes  you  have,"  she  replied,  stepping  into  the  room 
and  turning  on  the  light  so  that  they  might  see  each  other 
distinctly.  He  turned  his  face  to  her,  and  she  went  on: 
"  You  wish  to  tell  me  that  you  are  very  angry,  because 
I  really  did  not  hurt  myself  this  afternoon.  Say  it  out 
frankly;  you'll  feel  better  for  it." 

Dick  thought  that  he  had  steeled  himself  to  any  fur- 
ther sensitiveness  with  regard  to  her,  but  every  word  she 
uttered  found  a  vulnerable  spot.  His  color  came  and 
went,  but  his  voice  was  cold  and  calm  as  he  answered 
her. 

"  I  think  that  it  would  have  been  better  for  both  of  us, 
if  you  really  had  hurt  yourself.  In  that  case  my  faith 
in  you  would  not  be  utterly  destroyed.  But  what's  the 
use  in  arguing  about  it.  We  can't  change  it." 

He  looked  at  his  watch  and  continued : 

"  It  is  getting  late.  I  am  going  into  the  south  bed- 
room. Is  there  anything  that  I  can  do  for  you  before 
I  go  to  bed  ?  " 

He  spoke  to  her  and  looked  at  her  as  if  she  had  been 
a  perfect  stranger;  and  she  returned  his  look,  and  imi- 
tated his  cold  reserve,  as  she  replied : 

"  No,  thank  you,  Nelly  is  in  the  next  room.  I  shall 
leave  my  door  open  and  call  her,  if  it  is  necessary.  I  am 
really  glad  that  you  are  going  to  sulk  it  out  alone.  Good- 
night." 

"  Good-night."  He  bowed  his  head  gently,  as  if  ac- 
knowledging a  courtesy;  but  a  feeling  of  sickening  de- 
spair sank  into  his  heart.  He  felt  that  destiny  had  pro- 
nounced a  decree  of  divorce  between  them  —  the  silent 


THE  TRELOARS  277 

divorce  of  two  wills  which  refuse  to  be  one,  of  two  tem- 
peraments which  refuse  to  harmonize,  that  henceforth 
their  life  together  must  be  a  sham  —  a  mock  union  look- 
ing fair  to  the  eyes  of  the  world,  but  hideous  to  them- 
selves. 

But  Nita  did  not  yet  feel  any  necessity  for  reconcilia- 
tion, and  Dick's  attitude  at  present  was  not  at  all  disagree- 
able to  her ;  on  the  contrary,  it  heightened  her  respect  for 
him,  because  he  was  showing  that  he  was  not  mere  putty 
in  her  hands,  to  be  molded  as  she  wished,  but  had  a 
manly  power  of  resistance.  However,  she  intended  to 
make  no  advances  towards  him  for  a  renewal  of  their 
friendly  relations.  He  should  come  to  her  first  when  he 
was  tired  of  the  coolness  between  them.  But  as  day  after 
day  passed  in  this  pitiful  estrangement,  and  as  her  physi- 
cal discomfort  increased,  the  need  of  sympathy,  always 
strong  in  her,  asserted  itself.  Both  had  unconsciously 
fallen  into  the  habit  of  expressing  themselves  freely  be- 
fore strangers,  laying  aside  for  the  time  being,  the  pri- 
vate mask  which  concealed  each  from  the  other,  and  re- 
suming it  immediately,  as  soon  as  they  were  alone.  In 
this  way  Nita  found  it  possible  to  vent  opinions  for 
Dick's  benefit,  in  the  form  of  twitting  generalities  that 
stung  him  keenly ;  but  he  was  sufficiently  master  of  him- 
self to  conceal  the  sting,  and  to  join  heartily  in  the  gen- 
eral approval  which  followed  their  expression. 

One  Sunday  afternoon  in  July,  before  some  new  ac- 
quaintances who  had  called,  Nita  adroitly  turned  the  con- 
versation to  the  subject  of  temperament  and  character. 
She  said  that  no  trait  of  character  seemed  to  her  so  child- 
ish and  contemptible  as  sulkiness  or  sullenness.  She 
much  preferred  violent  outbursts  of  anger  followed  by 
serenity  and  clear  skies  to  this  drizzling  implacable 
sullen  resentment  that  never  knew  how  to  forget  and 
forgive.  When  they  were  alone,  and  Dick,  as  usual,  was 
about  to  leave  the  room,  she  detained  him  saying: 

"  I  want  to  have  a  serious  word  with  you." 

He  turned  at  the  door  to  look  at  her  and  said: 


278  THE  TRELOARS 

"What  is  it?" 

"  Come  in  and  sit  down,  please.  I  won't  keep  you 
long." 

Dick  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  a  chair  and  looked  at  her 
without  the  trace  of  an  emotion  on  his  face. 

"  You  realize,  don't  you,  that  it  is  now  three  months 
that  we  have  kept  up  this  insufferable  farce  of  a  happy 
marriage,  and  that  we  are  both  as  wretched  as  it  is 
possible  to  be?" 

Dick  smiled  sarcastically, 

"  I  am  quite  as  much  aware  of  it  as  you." 

"  You  know,  too,  that  I  was  alluding  to  your  behavior 
when  I  spoke  about  sulkiness  a  little  while  ago." 

"  Perfectly.  I  am  not  quite  a  fool,  I  know  that  you 
never  lose  an  opportunity  to  humiliate  and  to  pain  me." 

Nita  opened  her  eyes  wide  in  unfeigned  surprise. 

"  How  can  you  say  that,"  she  retorted,  "  when  it  is  you 
who  have  been  systematically  showing  your  indifference 
to  my  comfort  and  your  aversion  to  me  in  every  possible 
way  except  actual  abuse;  and  I  should  a  million  times 
have  preferred  your  beating  me,  or  spurning  me  with 
your  foot,  or  killing  me  outright,  to  the  daily  insult  of 
your  cold  and  sullen  hatred.  You  know  that  I  am  a 
woman  of  spirit,  and  that,  not  for  the  fraction  of  a 
moment,  would  I  have  submitted  to  your  contempt,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  pitiable  condition  in  which  I  am.  You 
have  taken  a  base  advantage  of  my  helplessness.  At  a 
time,  when  a  woman  needs  all  the  sympathy  and  tender- 
ness that  are  due  her,  you  have  added  to  the  natural  pain 
and  discomfort  of  my  situation,  the  additional  burden  of 
intolerable  mental  anguish." 

Nita's  lips  quivered,  her  eyes  filled  with  tears,  then  all 
the  concentrated  rage  and  revolt  that  had  been  fermenting 
in  her  for  many  a  day  burst  forth  fiercely  in  the  terrible 
words : 

"  I  hate  you !     O,  how  I  hate  you !     I  hate  you !  " 

Dick  turned  white;  he  rose  from  his  chair,  approached 
her  quickly,  and  was  about  to  put  his  hand  on  her,  when 
she  recoiled  as  if  he  had  been  a  viper. 


THE  TRELOARS  279 

"  No,  don't  touch  me,  don't  touch  me !  I  beg  of  you 
to  spare  me  that  last  insult !  " 

Dick  turned  and  shut  the  door,  saying  gently: 

"  Please  don't  speak  so  loud.     The  servants  will  hear." 

"  I  don't  care  if  all  the  world  hears,"  she  shouted. 
"  I  should  like  it  to  hear  what  an  idiot  I  have  made  of 
myself,  what  an  incomparable  idiot  I  have  been !  " 

She  burst  into  a  fit  of  violent  weeping,  and  Dick,  not 
knowing  what  to  do  to  appease  her,  stood  helpless  and  be- 
wildered before  her.  He  forgot  his  own  resentment  in 
sympathy  with  hers,  and  when  she  lifted  her  tear-stained 
face,  he  noticed  its  sickly  hue,  the  hunted  look  in  her 
hollow  eyes  and  the  blue  circles  about  them,  and  his 
sympathy  increased  as  he  looked;  she  was  no  longer  his 
wife,  no  longer  the  woman  he  loved,  but  she  was  a  human 
creature  who  was  suffering,  and  his  heart  ached  for  her, 
and  however  much  she  had  failed  him,  he  must  not  fail 
her,  now. 

"  Nita,"  he  said  tenderly,  "  will  you  forgive  me  ?  God 
alone  knows  how  you  have  made  me  suffer,  but  if  I  have 
pained  you  in  any  like  degree,  I  hate  myself  as  much  as 
you  hate  me,  and  I  cannot  forgive  myself,  though  I  ask 
you  to  forgive  me." 

She  said  nothing,  but  she  sobbed  less  violently. 

"  Nita,"  he  pleaded,  and  he  knelt  beside  her,  holding 
out  his  hand  to  her.  "  Forgive  me,  and  if  there  is  any 
restitution  in  the  world  that  I  can  make  to  you,  ask  it, 
and  it  is  yours." 

She  looked  at  him  through  her  streaming  eyes.  His 
face  was  twitching  with  emotion,  and  his  eyes,  too,  were 
wet.  There  was  no  mistaking  the  genuineness  of  his  feel- 
ing, and  his  tenderness  was  like  dew  to  her  parched  soul. 
She  put  her  hand  into  his,  saying: 

"  Do  you  think  you  can  bear  with  me  just  a  little 
longer?  That  is  all  I  ask.  It  won't  be  long,  Dick," 
her  voice  was  tremulous  and  hoarse,  her  whole  bear- 
ing like  that  of  one  who  has  been  stricken  and  appeals 
for  mercy;  and  just  as  in  all  their  differences  and  dis- 


280  THE  TRELOARS 

putes,  she  had  the  art  of  turning  them  so  that  all  the 
wrong  seemed  to  come  from  him,  so  now  he  felt  him- 
self the  guilty  one.  He  had  acted  like  a  brute ;  he  had 
forgotten  that  she  was  a  sick  woman,  and  that  in  the 
temporarily  altered  state  of  her  highly  nervous  organi- 
zation, her  whims  and  caprices  were  no  more  to  be  taken 
seriously  than  those  of  a  spoiled  sick  child.  In  his  keen 
remorse  and  impulsive  sympathy,  he  caught  her  in  his 
arms,  and  she  did  not  resist  him ;  he  petted  her  tenderly, 
he  kissed  her  again  and  again,  feeling  that  she  was  given 
back  to  him,  and  that  in  the  ashes  of  his  own  burnt-out 
love,  there  had  leaped  up  a  sudden  flame  which  needed 
only  to  be  carefully  tended  to  bring  back  the  warmth  and 
brightness  to  their  dull,  shivering  lives. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

IT  was  the  end  of  August,  and  a  veiled  day  with  the 
rich,  subdued  golden  light  of  approaching  autumn,  the  sun 
burning  round  and  red  like  a  flushed  moon  in  the  western 
sky.  It  was  a  restful  tranquil  day  to  one  whose  heart 
was  full  of  eager  life;  but  to  those  whose  hearts  were 
heavy  with  grief,  or  torn  by  the  agony  of  long  suspense, 
its  beautiful  calm  seemed  to  intensify  the  cruel  indiffer- 
ence of  nature. 

All  day  long,  Dick  had  felt  this  anguish,  as  he  sat  by 
Nita's  bedside  and  watched  the  wavering  tide  of  life  ebb 
and  flow  gentler  and  gentler,  as  the  day  wore  on,  until 
the  red  sun  sank  behind  the  mountains ;  and  when  the 
last  red  rim  had  vanished,  the  restless  tide  had  ceased  for- 
ever. The  mother  had  paid  with  her  life  for  the  birth  of 
her  man-child.  The  babe  lay  sleeping  tranquilly,  ruddy, 
and  warm  in  its  soft-cushioned  cradle.  The  mother  lay 
white  and  cold  beyond  the  reach  of  pain  forevermore. 
Never  for  her  would  the  soft  caress  of  a  dimpled  hand, 
nor  the  smile  of  a  baby's  face  blot  out  the  memory  of 
the  pangs  of  the  primal  curse,  and  change  them  into  the 


THE  TRELOARS  281 

richest  blessing  of  human  life.  Never  to  her  ears  would 
the  sweetest  word  on  human  lips  vibrate  like  music  and 
thrill  her  heart  with  pride  and  joy.  Of  motherhood, 
she  had  known  but  the  sorrow  and  the  pain;  she  had 
passed  far  beyond  the  hope  of  its  rare  reward  or  the 
fear  of  its  cruel  disappointment. 

How  beautiful  she  was !  As  if  carved  out  of  the  soft- 
est, whitest  marble,  not  a  line  blurred  in  the  perfect  fea- 
tures ! 

"  O  Nita,  Nita,  come  back  to  me !  "  moaned  Dick,  in 
a  delirium  of  grief  as  he  knelt  alone  at  her  side.  "  O 
God,  forgive  me  my  crime,  and  send  her  back  to  me." 

All  the  shadows  of  their  married  life  had  vanished 
from  his  consciousness,  and  it  was  white  and  luminous 
before  the  marble  image  of  this  woman,  who  had  taught 
him  to  the  fullest  degree  what  life's  joys  and  sorrows 
are. 

"  Dick !  dear,  dear  Dick !  " 

It  was  Margaret's  soft  voice  that  was  speaking  to 
him,  Margaret's  soft  hand  that  was  touching  his  shoulder, 
as  she  bent  over  him.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had 
entered  his  home.  The  news  of  Nita's  death  had  come 
to  her  with  a  great  shock;  but  it  was  the  shock  of  a 
swift  deliverance  from  the  long  oppression  of  a  calam- 
ity, and  not  the  shock  of  grief  which  she  had  felt.  Her 
conscience  was  pricking  her  for  her  insensibility.  How 
hard  and  wicked  she  had  grown  by  nursing  resentment. 
Instead  of  trying  to  find  some  common  ground  of 
sympathy  between  Dick's  wife  and  herself,  she  had  held 
herself  coldly  aloof.  She  had  built  an  impenetrable  wall 
of  icy  reserve  about  herself.  She  had  not  uttered  an  un- 
kind word  of  Nita  since  Dick's  marriage,  she  had  com- 
mitted no  tangible  act  of  hostility ;  but  all  her  being  was 
unkindness  and  hostility  in  its  negative  aloofness ;  and 
the  result  of  it  was  that  she  who  had  been  all  feeling 
could  not  feel,  and  she  felt  degraded  and  punished  by 
this  loss  of  sensibility.  But  when  she  witnessed  Dick's 
grief,  when  she  looked  at  the  sleeping  babe,  the  mother- 


282  THE  TRELOARS 

heart  in  her  throbbed  again.  Her  coldness  and  reserve 
melted  away,  and  she  felt  herself  human. 

"  Dear  Dick,  try  to  be  brave !  " 

He  lifted  his  tear-stained  face  to  hers. 

"  What  have  I  to  live  for?" 

The  question  pierced  Margaret's  heart. 

"  For  the  little  one,  Dick,  for  the  beautiful  child  she 
has  left  to  us  —  your  son,  her  son." 


CHAPTER  XXX 

"FATHER,  I  want  to  ask  a  favor  of  you,  the  greatest 
favor  that  I  have  ever  asked;  the  one  favor  that  if  you 
don't  grant  me,  will  break  my  heart.  Yes,  it  will ;  please 
don't  smile,  Daddy,  I  was  never  so  serious  in  my  life, 
never,  never!" 

Dolly's  face  was  flushed  with  excitement,  her  dark  eyes 
were  glistening.  She  was  tremulous  as  a  bird  on  a  twig, 
preparing  for  a  long  flight  over  the  summits  of  trees  and 
into  the  blue.  It  was  her  free  afternoon  at  the  hospital, 
and  she  had  telephoned  her  father,  to  be  sure  to  stay  at 
home,  for  she  was  coming  out  in  a  taxi,  as  quick  as  she 
could,  and  had  something  very  important  to  tell  him. 
Now,  she  stood  before  him  in  the  dear,  familiar  library 
with  its  deep  broad  windows  looking  out  on  the  green 
lawn,  flecked  with  sunshine  and  shade. 

Dr.  Parker  took  his  cigar  from  his  mouth,  cleared  his 
throat  and  said  with  an  accent  of  unusual  firmness  in 
his  voice: 

"  Now,  Dolly,  if  the  favor  you  want  is  my  consent  to 
your  going  to  Europe  as  a  war  nurse,  you  can't  have  it ; 
that's  all  there  is  about  it." 

A  peculiar  little  twinkle  came  into  Dolly's  eyes.  She 
drew  a  chair  up  close  to  her  father,  who  was  sitting  by 
the  window,  and  leaning  towards  him,  said  coaxingly : 

"  Now,  Daddy,  will  you  please  give  me  your  reasons, 
and  let  me  see  if  I  can't  demolish  them  one  by  one." 


THE  TRELOARS  283 

"  Now  look  here,  Dolly,  none  of  your  wheedling !  I 
don't  intend  to  confess  that  my  reasons  are  demolished, 
no  matter  how  entirely  you  may  think  they  are.  You 
can't  go,  Dolly." 

He  spoke  very  emphatically,  and  Dolly  knew  by  the 
way  that  he  set  his  lips  firmly  together  and  looked  at  her 
steadily,  that  his  mind  was  fully  made  up,  and  that  noth- 
ing she  could  say  or  do  would  change  it,  but  she  went  on 
with  her  accustomed  persistency : 

"  But  you  will  tell  me  why,  won't  you,  dear  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I'll  tell  you  why.  I  don't  want  you  to  go.  It's 
no  place  for  a  young  girl ;  no  place  for  you,  sensitive  and 
impulsive  as  you  are.  It's  all  right  to  take  a  course  in 
nursing.  I've  no  objection  to  your  keeping  on,  if  you 
want  to,  though  your  year  is  up.  But  I  am  not  going 
to  have  you  sacrifice  your  youth  to  the  horrors  and  suffer- 
ings of  war." 

"  Sacrifice  my  youth!  You  talk  as  if  the  war  was  go- 
ing to  last  years.  It'll  soon  be  over.  I  heard  one  of  the 
surgeons  say  so,  the  other  day.  He's  going  to  offer  his 
services  to  the  French." 

"  And  persuaded  you  to  do  the  same  thing,"  exclaimed 
her  father  with  a  very  decided  note  of  irritation  in  his 
voice. 

"  O,  no,  Daddy.  Now  do  be  calm.  He  didn't  do  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  What  I  was  going  to  say  is  that  he 
said  the  war  would  be  all  over  in  six  months.  Scientific 
inventions  had  made  possible  such  terrific  slaughter, 
that " 

"  Scientific  inventions  have  not  destroyed  the  rancor 
and  jealousy  of  the  human  heart,  nor  the  lust  of  cruelty 
and  the  lust  of  power.  These  things  have  made  the  war, 
and  they  will  prolong  the  war.  It  may  last  years,  Dolly, 
you  can't  tell  anything  about  it,  any  more  than  you  can 
tell  when  an  insane  man  is  going  to  recover  his  senses, 
or  when  a  woman  knows  what  she  wants." 

"  Daddy  is  that  a  nasty  little  hit  at  your  beloved 
daughter  ?  " 


284  THE  TRELOARS 

"If  my  beloved  daughter  doesn't  know  what  she  wants, 
it's  a  fair  and  square  hit  at  my  beloved  daughter." 

"  Well,  your  beloved  daughter  isn't  hit,  for  she  does 
know  what  she  wants.  She  does  not  at  all  want  to  go 
to  the  war.  It  never  entered  her  wildest  dreams  to  go 
to  the  war,  but  when  she  saw  that  her  father  was  jump- 
ing at  conclusions,  she  wanted  to  know  how  he  liked 
them,  and  having  found  out  that  he  doesn't,  she  is  will- 
ing to  tell  him  that  he  needn't  jump  that  way  any  more, 
but  he  may  try  it  again." 

"  Do  you  want  to  get  married  ?  " 

Dolly  threw  up  her  hands  and  shrieked  with  laughter. 

"  Cold,  cold,  cold,  you're  at  the  North  Pole  in  your 
guessing,  Daddy." 

"  Well  then,  what  in  the  name  of  heaven,  do  you 
want?" 

The  doctor  moved  impatiently  in  his  chair,  Dolly  looked 
at  him  with  the  serenest  smile  and  said  quietly : 

"  Daddy,  I  want  to  adopt  a  baby." 

"  Good  God !  what  do  you  want  to  adopt  a  baby  for  ?  " 

"  To  take  care  of  it.  Now  don't  get  excited,  please, 
father,"  cried  Dolly,  getting  excited  herself  in  her  eager- 
ness to  win  his  consent.  "  Just  listen  quietly  while  I  ex- 
plain. It's  no  strange  baby,  I  want.  It's  Dick's  baby. 
Dick  came  to  the  hospital  day  before  yesterday,  to  say 
good-by  to  me.  He  didn't  think  he'd  get  a  chance  to 
see  me  at  home.  His  paper  is  sending  him  to  Europe 
as  a  war  correspondent;  and  he's  eager  to  go.  Of 
course,  Margaret  is  heart-broken  over  it,  and  on  the  verge 
of  a  nervous  breakdown,  and  I  thought  of  the  extra  care 
she  had  with  the  baby,  and  Catherine  married  and  gone, 
so  I  said,  '  Dick,  would  you  trust  the  baby  with  me,  if 
I  went  home  and  gave  up  all  my  time  to  it?  I've  had 
good  training  in  that  work.  I  should  know  what  to  do.' 
Father,  the  tears  came  into  his  eyes,  he  took  both  my 
hands  in  his,  and  said,  '  Dolly,  would  you  do  that  for 
me?  anyway,  until  Margaret  gets  strong  again?  It  is 
the  only  anxiety  I  have  in  leaving  the  country,  and  I 


THE  TRELOARS  285 

know  you  would  care  for  him  as  if  he  were  your  own.' 
'  O,  Dick  yes,  as  if  he  were  my  very  own,'  I  said.  '  Of 
course/  Dick  went  on,  '  Margaret  won't  want  to  give 
him  up  at  first,  but  I  think  I  can  persuade  her  to  do 
so ;  then  you  must  ask  your  father,  if  he  is  willing,'  and 
I  know  you  so  well,  that  I  said  you  would  be  willing, 
and  he  told  me  he'd  write  me,  if  he  got  Margaret's  con- 
sent, and  the  letter  came  this  morning.  Here  it  is." 

Dolly  put  her  hand  into  her  loose  white  blouse,  and 
drew  out  the  precious  letter.     Her  hand  trembled  as  she 
opened  it,  and  her  voice  was  unsteady  as  she  read  it 
aloud : 
"  Dear  Dolly : 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  how  intensely  grateful  I  am  to  you 
for  this  immense  kindness.  I  know  that  it  means  a 
burden.  I  know,  too,  that  you  will  do  it  so  lovingly 
that  it  will  seem  no  burden.  But  be  sure  to  have  your 
father's  full  consent.  Margaret  wishes  to  add  a  few 
lines,  very  gratefully  and  faithfully  yours 

"  DICK  "— 

"  Here's  what  Margaret  says : 

" My  very  dear  Dolly: 

"  It  was  like  your  big  warm  heart  to  wish  to  do  this 
beautiful  thing.  The  dear  little  baby  has  already  grown 
into  my  heart,  and  to  part  with  it  would  be  impossible 
if  I  felt  strong  and  young  as  I  did  a  year  ago.  But  I 
am  at  present  only  the  ghost  of  myself.  I  can't  seem 
to  think,  I  go  about  in  a  sort  of  stupor ;  forgetting  what 
I've  started  to  do,  and  having  to  go  back  where  I  com- 
menced, to  have  it  flash  over  me  again.  I  shall  be  myself 
again,  I  know,  but  when?  I  don't  know  that.  In  the 
meantime,  I  am  not  fit  to  take  care  of  a  baby  that  has 
its  right  to  sunshine  and  smiles,  and  if  your  father  is 
willing  that  you  should  take  charge  of  him  for  a  while, 
I  add  my  love  and  gratitude  to  Dick's  and  thank  you  a 
thousand  times  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart. 

"  Lovingly  yours, 

"  MARGARET." 


286  THE  TRELOARS 

"  Poor  Margaret !  "  Dolly  folded  her  letter,  her  cheeks 
like  a  rose,  her  eyes  bright  and  dewy. 

Dr.  Parker  rose  from  his  chair  with  the  alacrity  of 
a  youth.  His  face  was  beaming,  and  Dolly  knew  that 
she  had  not  only  won  his  consent,  but  that  he  was  thor- 
oughly pleased. 

"  Come,  get  your  hat,  Dolly.  We'll  go  right  over  for 
that  baby ! " 

Dolly  threw  her  arms  about  her  father's  neck,  and 
kissed  him  so  heartily  that  he  had  to  beg  to  be  spared 
any  further  demonstrations. 

"  O,  I  am  so  happy !  so  happy !  No  more  broken  bones 
and  bruises;  a  dear,  soft,  little  rosy  baby  to  live  with; 
for  I've  given  up  the  hospital.  I  knew  you  would  con- 
sent. Isn't  life  jolly?" 

She  went  away  to  get  her  hat,  and  passing  the  open 
piano,  ran  her  fingers  swiftly  over  the  keys  eliciting  a 
melodious  paean,  and  was  back  in  a  moment  with  her 
white  straw  hat  on  her  head,  her  bright  lovely  face  under 
it  full  of  joy. 

"You  know,  Daddy,"  she  said,  getting  into  the  auto- 
mobile beside  her  father,  "  the  baby  is  always  to  be  mine. 
That  must  be  understood  from  the  very  first.  I  am  not 
to  have  all  my  heart  strings  wound  round  and  round  that 
little  thing  and  then  have  them  suddenly  wrenched  away, 
to  be  left  widowed  and  childless,  like  Niobe  all  tears. 
That  wouldn't  be  fair,  would  it  ?  " 

"  No,  that  wouldn't  be  fair.  I  think  if  we  are  tactful, 
we  can  get  their  consent  to  the  adoption,  only  I  want  to 
make  one  condition  with  you,  Miss.  When  he  gets  to 
the  drum  and  trumpet  stage  of  the  game,  he  is  to  be 
kept  in  blissful  ignorance  that  there  are  such  hideous 
disturbers  of  domestic  peace." 

"  All  right,  father.  He  shall  be  brought  up  to  respect 
your  peace  and  quiet.  O,  I  am  so  deliriously  happy! 
It  seems  to  me  as  if  we  were  just  poking  along.  Can't 
we  speed  up  a  little  ?  Ah,  that's  better !  Isn't  it  strange 
how  all  things  seem  to  fit  into  the  scheme  of  one's  life? 


THE  TRELOARS  287 

It  almost  seems  as  if  my  year's  training  had  been  in- 
tended to  fit  me  for  this  task.  How  grateful  I  am  you 
made  me  stick  out  my  year.  Do  you  remember  that  night 
of  Dick's  wedding,  when  you  wouldn't  let  me  go  home 
with  you  ?  " 

"  I  don't  remember  not  letting  you  go  home  with  me." 

"  Not  in  so  many  words,  Daddy,  but  you  were  obtusely 
impervious  to  a  hint  that  was  anything  but  delicate,  and 
I  felt  for  a  moment,  just  the  fleetingest  moment,  that 
you  were  a  mean  old  thing.  But  I  wouldn't  "be  with- 
out the  year's  experience  for  anything  in  the  world." 

"  It's  been  a  great  thing  for  you,  Dolly.  I  hardly 
think  I  should  consent  to  your  taking  the  baby  if  you 
hadn't  been  through  the  mill,  and  didn't  know  what  re- 
sponsibility means." 

Dolly's  sweet  face  grew  thoughtful,  as  she  answered: 

"  But  I  do,  father.  I  never  dreamed  how  much  pain 
and  suffering  there  is  in  the  world,  and  how  insignificant 
in  comparison,  are  our  little  disappointments  and  vex- 
ations. You  know,  father,  sometimes  I  think  it's  a 
good  thing  for  Dick  to  be  going  where  he  can  lose  the 
keen  sense  of  his  own  wretchedness  by  matching  it  with 
the  horrors  of  war."  She  paused  a  moment  then  laughed 
merrily  as  she  asked,  "  So  you  thought  I  wanted  to  go, 
too,  did  you  ?  I  must  have  looked  particularly  belligerent. 
Weren't  you  relieved  when  you  found  that  it  was  only 
Dick's  baby  I  wanted  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  like  that  better." 

"  So  do  I.  By  the  way,  I  wonder  if  Dick  has  ever 
heard  from  Max  Gietmann,  since  he  went  away  last 
spring?  " 

"  I  think  not." 

"  He  needs  his  lesson,  too.  I  never  liked  that  man ; 
because,  of  all  the  wicked  persons,  I  think  the  wickedest 
are  those  who  take  their  own  private  resentments,  hatreds 
and  frustrated  ambitions  for  a  universal  calamity  and 
infect  the  world  with  their  discontent.  And  I  know,  now, 
how  easily  it  is  infected.  My  hospital  experience  has 


288  THE  TRELOARS 

taught  me  that.  There  are  beautifully  healthy  sane  na- 
tures that  are  always  immune;  you  may  expose  them  to 
all  sorts  of  diseases,  and  they  never  catch  them.  Then 
there  are  weak,  sickly,  wabbling  natures,  holding  within 
themselves  the  right  nesting  place  for  all  sorts  of  in- 
fectious germs.  You  can  only  keep  them  in  a  sort  of 
negative  state  of  health  by  complete  isolation.  For  their 
sakes  we  have  to  fight  the  germs,  otherwise,  it  wouldn't 
make  any  difference  whether  lurking  infections  existed 
or  not.  They  could  do  little  harm;  for  they  could  not 
spread  and  would  just  burst  at  last  with  their  own 
venom.  I  hope  Max  —  no,  I  can't  hope  anything  evil 
on  this  lovely  day,  when  I  am  so  happy;  but  I  hope  he 
will  be  converted." 

"  The  trouble  is  that  you  can't  permanently  convert  a 
temperament  or  a  constitution.  It  is  always  subject  to 
vicious  relapses.  Well,  here  we  are.  Now,  Dolly,  just 
leave  this  matter  about  the  adoption  of  the  baby  to  me. 
I'll  talk  it  over  first  with  Dick  and  his  father,  before  any- 
thing is  said  about  it  to  Margaret.  Very  likely,  she 
wouldn't  favor  the  idea,  unless  it  came  authoritatively 
from  Dick,  and  it  may  be  just  as  well  not  to  give  her  a 
chance  to  influence  him  against  it." 

"  O  Daddy,  dear,  I  don't  like  doing  anything  under- 
hand. Margaret  is  so  sweet  and  good,  I  always  want 
to  be  able  to  look  straight  into  her  eyes  and  feel  that  I 
have  nothing  to  conceal  from  her.  While  you  are  talk- 
ing to  Dick,  I'll  talk  to  her.  I  really  must.  I  can't  do 
anything  else." 

"Very  well,  do  as  you  like;  but  if  you  shouldn't  suc- 
ceed  " 

"  But  I  shall  succeed.  I  am  full  of  success  to-day. 
Just  see  how  I  succeeded  with  you." 

Dolly  did  not  boast  in  vain.  When  she  rode  home 
with  her  father  with  the  precious  burden  in  her  arms, 
it  was  with  the  clear  understanding  that  the  child  was 
hers,  and  that  no  one  should  ever  have  the  right  to 


THE  TRELOARS  289 

take  it  from  her,  except  with  her  free  consent.  The 
tears  were  in  Margaret's  eyes  when  she  put  the  child 
into  Dolly's  arms,  but  they  were  tears  of  gratitude,  not 
of  renunciation.  "  You  are  so  much  better  fitted  for  the 
task  than  I,  Dolly.  Some  day  I  may  be  strong  enough 
for  it;  but  it  would  be  fair  neither  to  the  child  nor  to 
you  to  break  the  sweet  tie  that  will  grow  strong  between 
you.  I  shall  be  near  enough  for  him  to  learn  to  love 
me,  too;  but  I  wish  you  to  be  first  in  his  heart.  I  do, 
indeed,  Dolly,  dear." 

Margaret  kissed  her  tenderly,  and  Dolly  bent  her  fresh 
young  face  over  the  child  with  all  the  delightfully  fool- 
ish fondness  of  a  mother  beaming  in  her  eyes  and  playing 
about  her  lips. 

"  Have  you  named  him  yet  ?  "  she  asked,  looking  up 
half  shyly,  conscious  that  her  heart  was  repeating  all  its 
fondness  in  her  face. 

"  Yes.  Dick  said  that  once  before  the  birth  of  the 
child,  the  mother  said  that  if  it  were  a  boy,  she  wished 
to  call  him  Max  Eugene;  so  we  have  given  him  that 
name." 

Dolly  colored  and  said  quickly : 

"  Eugene  is  a  pretty  name,  it  can  be  so  nicely  shortened 
into  Gene,  or  you  can  make  a  pet  name  of  it  and  say 
Geney;  but  Maxy  sounds  silly,  doesn't  it?  and  Max 
is  such  a  grown-up  word  for  a  baby.  You  won't  mind 
if  I  call  him  by  his  middle  name,  will  you  ?  " 

"  O  no ;  he  is  your  boy  now.  You  may  call  him  what 
you  like." 

Her  boy  now!  How  her  young  heart  swelled  with 
happy  pride  at  the  thought !  It  was  more  than  mother- 
hood by  proxy  with  Dolly;  it  was  almost  the  real  thing, 
such  need  there  was  in  her  overflowing  heart  to  give  of 
its  abundant  love.  Nature  had  richly  endowed  her  with 
the  mother-instinct,  the  warm  quick  sympathy  with  all 
young  and  growing  things;  the  intuitive  understanding 
of  their  needs;  the  large  elastic  patience  which  knows 


2QO  THE  TRELOARS 

how  to  make  allowance  for  the  unconscious  slips  of  in- 
experience, and  is  not  easily  fretted  by  the  faults  which 
time  will  cure.  Added  to  all  that,  she  had  the  gift  of 
a  resourceful  intelligence,  the  power  of  ready  responsive- 
ness, and  a  sunny  humor,  so  that  no  dawning  intellect 
could  ever  be  dwarfed  or  warped  under  her  influence,  but 
might  grow  as  straight  and  tall,  as  nature  had  given  it  the 
power  to  grow. 

Dick  felt  this  with  a  new  recognition  of  Dolly's  sweet 
womanhood  that  came  to  him  like  a  revelation  on  the 
day  on  which  he  went  to  say  good-by  to  her  and  to  her 
father,  and  to  take  a  farewell  look  at  his  son,  before  de- 
parting for  France. 

It  was  a  lovely  afternoon  towards  the  end  of  Novem- 
ber. A  faint  breeze  lightly  stirred  through  the  trees 
and  bent  the  tangled  grasses  by  the  roadside.  The  air 
was  exhilarating,  making  it  a  delight  to  walk  and  though 
Dick's  heart  was  still  heavy  with  grief,  there  mingled 
with  his  sorrow  an  exaltation  and  excitement  born  of  the 
uncertainty  of  his  future.  It  might  be  the  last  time  that 
he  would  ever  take  this  walk.  Only  a  short  year  ago,  he 
seemed  to  be  treading  the  summit  of  happiness,  and  all 
his  future  lay  before  him  steeped  in  sunlight.  Now  it 
was  dark  and  murky,  shot  through  with  flames  of  vivid 
stinging  regret  and  pain.  His  consciousness  was  still  ab- 
sorbed by  his  loss.  He  searched  and  groped  with  all  his 
being  after  Nita,  yearning  with  passionate  pain  for  some 
sign,  some  hint  that  she  had  not  passed  into  nothing- 
ness ;  that  somewhere,  somehow,  the  bright  quick  intellect, 
purged  of  the  flesh,  lived  in  immortal  glory  and  could  find 
some  subtle  way  to  assure  him  of  its  existence.  To- 
day, the  immortal  essence  of  her  seemed  to  be  inter- 
fused with  all  that  he  saw  and  heard,  and  softly,  slowly, 
he  repeated  aloud  those  exquisite  lines  from  In  Mem- 
oriam;  whose  beauty  and  power  no  one  knows  who  has 
not  read  it  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  personal  loss 
and  grief: 


THE  TRELOARS  291 

"  Thy  voice  is  on  the  rolling  air; 
I  hear  thee  where  the  waters  run: 
Thou  standest  in  the  rising  sun, 
And  in  the  setting  thou  art  fair. 

What  art  thou  then?    I  cannot  guess: 
But  tho'  I  seem  in  star  and  •Rower, 
To  feel  thee  some  diffusive  power, 
I  do  not  therefore  love  thee  less: 

My  love  involves  the  love  before; 
My  love  is  vaster  passion  now; 
Tho'  mixed  with  God  and  nature 
I  seem  to  love  thee  more  and  more 

Far  off  thou  art,  but  ever  nigh; 
I  have  thee  still  and  I  rejoice; 
I  prosper  circled  with  thy  voice; 
I  shall  not  lose  thee,  tho'  I  die." 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

WHAT  an  unfailing  source  of  comfort  and  strength 
the  baby  was  to  Dolly!  The  wonder  of  this  tiny  help- 
less creature  slowly  unfolding  itself  into  consciousness, 
as  the  tight  little  bud  slowly  unfolds  itself  into  the  color 
and  perfume  of  the  rose  was  an  unceasing  delight  to 
her.  She  caught  herself  falling  into  the  familiar  ma- 
ternal habit  of  relating  with  vivid  interest  all  the  little 
signs  of  dawning  intelligence  in  the  child.  Then  re- 
membering that  she  had  been  frequently  bored  by  similar 
relations  from  various  mothers,  she  said  to  her  father: 

"  Daddy,  we  mustn't  get  into  that  silly  habit  of  repeat- 
ing to  others  outside  of  the  family  all  baby's  funny  little 
tricks,  and  when  he  is  older  all  his  funny  sayings.  They 
are  like  family  photographs  meant  for  the  bed-room,  not 
the  parlor." 

"  You  are  quite  right.  Millions  of  babies  do  the  same 
thing  millions  of  times  a  day.  There's  nothing  new  in 
all  their  tricks." 


292  THE  TRELOARS 

Dolly  demurred ;  she  was  quite  sure  that  each  baby  had 
its  individuality  quite  as  pronounced  as  each  grown  per- 
son, and  she  called  in  question  the  acuteness  and  accuracy 
of  his  powers  of  observation.  It  was  not  long  before  her 
father  had  an  opportunity  of  retaliation  by  challenging 
her  ability  to  follow  her  own  advice.  He  had  overheard 
her  relating  to  a  visitor  with  great  satisfaction  some  un- 
usual proof  of  the  baby's  intelligence. 

"  You  know,  Dolly,  it  isn't  any  convincing  evidence 
of  intellectual  precocity  to  have  teeth  and  hair.  Every- 
body has  them  sooner  or  later,  and  may  lose  them  without 
any  corresponding  mental  deficiency." 

Dolly  laughed. 

"  I  wasn't  boasting  about  his  teeth  and  hair,  though  I 
think  his  hair  is  wonderfully  thick  for  his  age  and  that 
he's  getting  his  teeth  early ;  but  what  I  do  think  remark- 
able, is  the  sense  of  humor  that  he  has.  You  should  have 
heard  him  laugh  the  other  day  when  I  purposely  pro- 
nounced some  words  wrong.  He  opened  his  little  mouth 
and  laughed  so  heartily  that  I  was  perfectly  astonished." 

"  You  are  sure  you  weren't  tickling  him  ?  " 

"With  my  fingers?  No.  With  my  silly  pronuncia- 
tion, yes." 

"  You  will  allow  me  to  be  a  little  incredulous,  and  to 
suggest  that  you  keep  this  display  of  humor  for  a  family 
photograph." 

Dolly  looked  teased. 

"  Don't  be  afraid  of  my  indiscretion.  I  always  choose 
the  proper  audience  for  these  confidences  about  the  baby. 
Mrs.  Wyman  is  the  mother  of  six  children,  and  she'd 
rather  talk  about  babies  than  anything  else.  In  fact, 
that's  the  one  thing  that  she  can  talk  best  about,  and  I've 
learned  a  lot  of  things  about  the  care  of  children  from 
her.  She  thinks  it  is  a  great  deal  easier  to  raise  a  large 
family  than  just  one  child.  She  says  each  child  helps  to 
amuse  and  take  care  of  the  other,  and  that  a  family  senti- 
ment is  awakened  which  an  only  child  never  can  have. 
I  think  that  must  be  true.  How  I  wish  the  baby  had  a 
little  brother  or  sister !  " 


THE  TRELOARS  293 

"  Now  look  here,  Dolly.  We're  not  going  to  start  an 
orphan  asylum." 

"  Darling  Daddy,  I  am  not  going  to  start  an  orphan 
asylum.  It  isn't  everybody's  baby  I  should  like  to  take 
the  responsibility  of  raising,  but  I  think  it  would  have 
been  lovely  if  baby  had  been  born  a  twin  or  a  trip- 
let." 

"  Why  not  a  quartette,  while  you're  at  it  ?  " 

"  Well,  that  would  be  better,  still,"  laughed  Dolly ;  then 
growing  serious,  she  continued : 

"  I  don't  want  Eugene  to  grow  selfish,  and  an  only 
child  is  almost  inevitably  selfish.  He  has  never  had  to 
share  anything  with  anybody  and  he  is  the  center  of  in- 
terest in  the  household ;  that's  what  puts  him  out  of  nat- 
ural relation  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  know  it 
by  my  own  experience.  I  have  never,  until  now,  realized 
how  much  I  owe  to  you,  father,  and  how  ungrateful  and 
selfish  I  have  been." 

"  Now,  don't  exaggerate,  Dolly.  You  have  been  a  very 
good  girl ;  you  have  never  caused  me  a  moment's  anxiety, 
barring  that  little  hospital  escapade,  but  that  turned  out 
all  right." 

"  Yes,  because  I  first  learned  there  what  responsibility 
means." 

"  Well,  we'll  give  the  boy  a  training  in  that  from  the 
start,  so  that  he  won't  have  to  go  to  a  hospital  to  get  it. 
He  must  have  some  little  task,  no  matter  how  trifling,  the 
performance  of  which  is  left  wholly  to  him;  getting  the 
kindling  ready  for  the  morning  fire,  filling  up  tea-kettles, 
sweeping  the  walks,  cultivating  a  little  garden.  The 
whole  trouble  with  bringing  up  children  lies  in  that  fool- 
ish fondling  of  them,  and  perpetually  feeding  and  dress- 
ing and  washing  them  long  after  they  are  able  to  do  all 
those  things  for  themselves.  Another  thing,  Dolly,  for 
heaven's  sake  let  your  '  yes '  mean  '  yes '  and  your  '  no, ' 
'no.'  Don't  teach  him  to  argue  with  you.  I  believe  it 
is  called  reasoning  with  a  child.  You  can't  reason  with 
a  child;  from  the  simple  fact  that  he  has  no  experience 


294  THE  TRELOARS 

from  which  to  make  deductions.  He  can  only  persis- 
tently and  plausibly  assert  what  he  wants  and  he  ends 
by  getting  it,  because  he  has  simply  tired  out  his  op- 
ponent, and  then  he  despises  your  judgment,  because 
he  has  walked  over  it.  I  don't  believe  either  that  you 
can  bring  him  up  without  a  good  spanking  once  in  a 
while.  Children  haven't  changed  any  since  Solomon's 
warning :  '  The  rod  and  reproof  give  wisdom ;  but  a  child 
left  to  itself  bringeth  his  mother  to  shame'." 

"  It  seems  so  cruel  and  shameful  to  strike  a  little  child 
that  can't  strike  back.  I  don't  want  ever  to  touch  Eugene 
harshly." 

"  You  prefer  that  he  should  strike  you  some  day  in 
disobedience,  and  ingratitude,  and  contempt  for  all  that 
you've  done  for  him  ? " 

"  No." 

"Well,  it'll  end  that  way,  unless  he  is  one  child  out 
of  a  hundred.  There's  a  popular  craze  about  natural 
methods  in  everything  nowadays.  It  is  the  one  stock 
phrase  that  is  never  questioned ;  but  nobody  seems  to  be 
aware  of  the  fact  that  nature  is  inexorable  when  her 
laws  are  violated.  She  sends  her  punishment  swift  and 
sure.  She  has  only  one  method  of  training  into  obedi- 
ence. She  does  not  argue,  pet,  or  coddle,  or  persuade. 
She  raps  the  offender  sharply  over  the  knuckles  and 
brings  him  into  line,  or  she  takes  him  by  the  nape  of 
the  neck  and  knocks  his  head  against  something  hard; 
and  if  he  doesn't  take  the  hint  she  doesn't  bother  about 
him,  she  lets  him  go  straight  to  the  devil.  Nature,  then, 
as  her  means  of  discipline,  has  chosen  the  language  of 
pain,  because  it  is  the  only  universal  language.  There's 
no  misunderstanding  what  speaks  to  the  senses.  Do  you 
know,  Dolly,  I've  been  thinking  of  late,  that  all  the  brutal- 
ities and  obscenities  in  the  shallow-minded,  shallow- 
hearted  literature  of  the  day,  are  only  an  involuntary  re- 
action from  that  soft,  sentimental  molly-coddling  of  the 
young  for  which  you  women  are,  for  the  most  part,  re- 
sponsible." 


THE  TRELOARS  295 

"  Why,  father !  you  don't " 

"  No,  now  wait  a  minute.  I've  brought  you  up  on  the 
argumentative  plan,  and  you  always  want  to  cut  in,  be- 
fore I've  finished  what  I  have  to  say." 

"  Excuse  me !  "  said  Dolly  demurely. 

"  You've  set  yourself  the  task  of  bringing  up  a  man- 
child,  and  if  you  rob  him  of  the  attributes  of  his  man- 
hood, by  putting  into  his  body  a  cheap  second-hand 
woman's  soul,  you  will  be  a  criminal !  " 

"  Why,,  father !  " 

"  Yes,  you  will,  because  you  will  have  destroyed  the 
very  bark  and  steel  of  character  —  the  power  to  endure 
hardship  and  disappointment  —  the  elasticity  which 
makes  a  man  rise  every  time  he  falls  and  go  on  again, 
instead  of  lying  whining  on  his  back,  waiting  for  some- 
body to  pull  him  up.  You  women  do  that  with  boys  out 
of  superfluous  kindness.  You  never  reason  with  your 
heads,  but  with  your  hearts.  Of  course,  that's  lovely  at 
times,  for  indulgence  isn't  always  harmful ;  but  as  a  steady 
dose  it  is  deadly.  You  can  drown  a  man  in  molasses 
as  well  as  in  cold  water,  and  it  is  a  nastier,  stickier  death. 
A  woman  never  seems  to  be  able  to  look  over  her  own 
head.  She  literally  puts  herself  into  another  man's  place ; 
that  is,  she  transfers  to  him  her  own  mentality  —  all  her 
own  idiosyncrasies,  her  likes,  her  dislikes,  her  fears,  the 
torments  of  her  conscience,  and  she  is  overwhelmed  with 
pity  for  herself  in  his  condition  and  acts  accordingly. 
That  is  why  she  sends  hot-house  bouquets  to  the  hard- 
ened criminal  who  knows  no  more  about  a  conscience 
prick  than  a  rhinoceros,  and  would  rather  have  a  hunk 
of  sausage  and  a  slice  of  limburger  than  all  the  delica- 
cies and  refinements  of  civilization." 

"  But,  we  aren't  all  that  way,  and  there  are  a  great 
many  men,  too,  whose  humanity  is  only  a  weak-kneed 
indulgence." 

"  Yes,  I  grant  it ;  maudlin  sentimentality  isn't  a  monop- 
oly of  your  sex,  but  it  is  more  frequent  among  you  — 
and  more  often  it  is  the  result  of  your  influence;  and 


296  THE  TRELOARS 

wherever  you  find  it,  it  spoils  the  game  of  life.  It  up- 
sets all  nature's  drastic  methods  of  improving  the  race. 
Then  you  women  exaggerate  the  social  instinct.  You 
can't  walk  Without  holding  hands.  Man's  happiness  and 
welfare  was  never  intended  to  be  dependent  on  others  to 
such  an  extent  as  it  is  in  present  society.  You  can't 
think  except  in  crowds.  You  can  only  feel  the  contagion 
of  the  mob  instinct.  You  heat  your  minds  as  sheep 
warm  themselves  by  huddling  together ;  and  that's  a  poor 
substitute  for  thought.  You  have  reduced  a  solid  educa- 
tion into  a  tasteless  pap  and  you  administer  it  in  troughs, 
instead  of  separate  dishes  suited  to  a  child's  consump- 
tion; and  you  are  so  afraid  that  it  won't  please  his  pal- 
ate, that  you  turn  his  attention  from  it,  by  providing  for 
his  amusement,  turning  your  schools  into  dance  halls, 
banquet  halls,  theaters,  and  concert  halls;  and  I  see  by 
the  last  idiotic  proposal  at  one  of  your  great  educational 
meetings  that  you  want  now  to  start  courtship  classes. 
Great  God !  —  and  think  of  your  silly,  untimely  discussion 
of  things  that  ought  to  be  kept  out  of  children's  heads  in- 
stead of  forced  into  them  before  maturity  brings  them 
naturally." 

"  Now  Daddy,  don't  get  excited,"  said  Dolly  with  a 
twinkle  in  her  eye.  "  You  are  getting  quite  red  in  the 
face,  so  this  discussion  is  unconstitutional.  Besides  you 
are  abusing  the  second  personal  pronoun,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  old-time  editorial  we.  What  have  /  got  to  do  with 
all  this?  I  who  am  as  innocent  as  the  lamb  that  didn't 
muddy  the  wolf's  stream?  /  haven't  been  carrying  any 
flowers  to  criminals,  nor  starting  courtship  classes." 
"  But  there's  no  telling  what  you  might  do." 
"  But  there's  telling  what  I  might  not  do,  and  these 
floral  vagaries  and  educational  amorosities,  (is  there  such 
a  word?)  I  am  not  equal  to.  So  there!  But  seriously, 
I  do  think  there  is  much  truth  in  what  you  say.  A 
teacher  of  a  private  girls'  school  at  the  hospital  told  me 
that  the  pity  for  poor  children  was  entirely  misplaced 
and  belonged  to  the  children  of  rich  families,  brought  up 


THE  TRELOARS  297 

in  habits  of  luxury  and  indulgence  until  they  were  abso- 
lutely incapable  of  doing  anything  for  themselves.  A 
nurse  in  the  children's  ward  told  me  that  convalescent 
children  were  much  less  fretful,  and  got  well  quicker 
when  they  were  left  to  themselves  for  their  amusement 
and  could  use  their  eyes  and  their  imagination  instead  of 
being  loaded  down  with  toys.  She  said  that  rich  families 
after  Christmas-time,  when  their  own  children  were  tired 
of  their  toys  would  bring  them  to  the  hospital  and  that 
they  were  a  real  pest  sometimes  instead  of  a  help.  I've 
remembered  that,  and  I  don't  intend  to  spoil  Eugene's  im- 
agination till  all  his  world  lies  outside  of  him,  instead  of 
within  him.  Don't  you  think,  father,  that  this  education 
by  facts,  facts,  facts,  has  something  of  the  same  re- 
sult?" 

"  Yes,  Dolly,"  answered  the  Doctor  with  a  sigh.  "  I 
am  afraid  it  has.  Yet  I've  been  in  my  time  a  great  lover 
of  facts.  But  there  are  facts  and  facts;  and  this  gen- 
eration has  been  principally  fed  on  husks  instead  of  grain ; 
and  I  can  echo  Lamb's  discouragement,  '  My  whole  heart 
is  faint  and  my  whole  head  is  sick  with  this  damn'd  cant- 
ing unmasculine  age  ' !  " 

"  Isn't  the  war  masculine  enough  for  you  ?  " 

"  No !  It  isn't  a  war  of  men,  it's  a  war  of  machines 
and  money  and  bestial  instincts ;  a  war  in  which  men  bur- 
row in  the  ground  like  rats  and  moles  and  let  their  can- 
nons fight  for  them,  instead  of  meeting  the  enemy  face 
to  face  on  an  open  field  like  the  men  of  old;  a  war  in 
which  a  treaty  is  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  honor  a  rag;  but 
I  can't  talk  these  things  over  with  you,  Dolly,  you  can't 
understand  the  rage  and  disgust  I  feel.  No  young  per- 
son can  —  I  am  going  out  for  a  walk." 

Dr.  Parker  jumped  from  his  chair  with  the  nimbleness 
of  a  boy  and  seizing  his  hat  rammed  it  down  over  his 
head,  and  strode  out  of  the  house. 

Like  the  majority  of  the  men  of  his  age  whose  birth 
year  coincides  with  the  publication  of  Darwin's  Origin 
of  Species,  he  had  passed  through  all  the  stages  of  in- 


298  THE  TRELOARS 

herited  religious  belief  in  his  childhood  —  very  hard  and 
narrow  —  to  renunciation  of  his  belief  in  his  teens  and 
acceptance  of  a  rigid  uncompromising  belief  in  the  in- 
fallibility of  science,  just  as  bigoted  as  his  former  re- 
ligious belief  had  been,  followed  by  the  gradual  modi- 
fication of  this  bigotry,  as  experience  brought  knowledge 
of  successive  abandonments  of  theories  which  he  had  ac- 
cepted as  facts.  His  long  association  with  Treloar  had 
further  modified  his  beliefs  into  the  final  relinquishment 
of  the  idea  of  the  infallibility  of  science  and  a  com- 
plete recognition  of  the  part  which  imagination  and  in- 
tuition play  in  human  decisions.  He  had  seen  a  man 
like  Lombroso,  one  of  the  most  pronounced  material- 
ists of  his  age,  publicly  acknowledge  that  though  he  had 
been  hostile  to  spiritualism  all  his  life,  believing  that  en- 
ergy is  a  property  of  matter,  and  thought,  a  function  of 
the  brain,  the  passion  for  truth  had  carried  the  day  with 
him  over  his  scientific  faith,  and  he  felt  obliged  to  write 
in  defense  of  spiritualism.  He  had  died  unconscious 
of  the  frauds  perpetrated  on  him  by  a  clever  and  notori- 
ous medium;  and  left  a  book  entitled  Hypnotism  and 
Spiritualism  which  is  a  monument  of  human  weakness, 
and  an  indisputable  proof  of  the  fact  that  "  man,"  as 
Gustave  LeBon  says,  "  sometimes  changes  the  names  of 
his  gods,  but  his  religious  mentality  remains  indestruct- 
ible." 

Yet  Dr.  Parker  was  by  no  means  converted  to  Tre- 
loar's  point  of  view;  but  he  had  grown  indulgent  to  it, 
feeling  that  though  it  arrogated  to  itself  airs  of  intel- 
lectual superiority,  it  did  not,  on  the  whole,  exhibit  its 
arrogance  so  offensively  as  the  anarchist's  attitude  with  a 
shameless  abandonment  of  all  standards  of  morality.  His 
own  atheism  (for  his  own  agnosticism  decidedly  leaned 
that  way)  took  into  account  the  weakness  of  human  na- 
ture and  its  need  of  moral  guidance  by  a  wise  selection 
of  the  experience  of  human  life.  Therefore,  he  had  ar- 
rived at  that  age  when  a  man's  convictions  are  settled 
and  his  judgment  the  surest.  Ignorance  seemed  beau- 


THE  TRELOARS  299 

tiful  to  him  in  comparison  with  the  nauseating,  perverted 
knowledge  which  prepared  death  for  the  soul.  He  re- 
called his  quiet  country  boyhood  home  on  a  rolling  prairie ; 
his  sane  healthy  childhood;  the  early  mornings  in  the 
dewy  fields,  the  songs  of  birds;  the  low  of  cattle  in  the 
meadows ;  his  mother's  cheerful  humor ;  his  father's  sense, 
and  all  the  homely  pleasures  of  his  leisure;  wading  the 
brooks,  catching  crawfish,  sliding  down  haystacks,  riding 
the  horses  bare-backed  to  the  pasture  or  the  water-trough, 
hunting  hens'  nests  the  length  of  green  hedges,  the  long 
winter  evenings  with  a  few  good  books,  well  thumbed, 
read  and  re-read  till  the  language  and  the  thought  were 
his  own  —  what  better  preparation  for  manhood  could 
he  have  had  than  that?  Could  he  be  grateful  enough 
that  he  had  escaped  the  hot-house  system  of  education 
which  ends  in  too  early  ripeness  and  decay? 

No,  knowledge  is  not  a  good  thing  for  everybody. 
That  was  the  one  lesson  he  was  getting  from  Germany 
now.  It  was  not  a  return  to  primitive  faiths  that  the 
world  needed.  That  seemed  to  him  forever  impossible; 
but  more  wholesome  ignorance ;  that  was  what  the  world 
needed;  only  just  so  much  knowledge  as  it  could  easily 
digest;  more  attention  to  simple  questions  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  less  mathematics  and  physics.  Education  — 
not  made  easier  and  easier  by  continual  dilution,  but  by 
elimination,  for  the  many ;  and  made  more  and  more  dif- 
ficult in  higher  education,  and  restricted  to  the  educable : 
not  more  and  more  tolerance  of  weakness  that  ends  in 
indifference,  but  more  decision  and  distinction :  —  not  the 
rule  of  the  mob  nor  the  rule  of  the  sword,  but  the  rule 
of  the  just  and  intelligent. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THERE  were  very  few  passengers  on  board  the  ship  on 
which  Dick  sailed  from  New  York,  and  all  of  them  were 
agents  for  importers  and  merchants  whose  chief,  perhaps 


300  THE  TRELOARS 

only,  regret  concerning  the  European  war  was  that  it 
would  either  interfere  with  business  or  put  a  stop  to  it. 
Nor  were  the  sympathies  of  their  agents  dictated  by  any- 
thing more  rational  than  inherited  instincts  and  preju- 
dices. If  they  were  of  German  extraction,  there  was  no 
question  whatever  about  the  justice  of  the  German 
cause,  nor  of  the  ultimate  victory  of  Germany  in  the 
course  of  a  few  months.  If,  on  the  contrary,  they  traced 
their  descent  from  England,  France,  or  Italy,  they  were 
just  as  positive  that  justice  and  ultimate  victory  were  on 
the  side  of  the  allies.  One  Frenchman  quoted  with  great 
satisfaction  the  prediction  of  the  Japanese,  General  Nogi, 
made  to  an  Italian  military  correspondent  at  the  time  of 
the  siege  of  Port  Arthur.  Those  who  wished  to  verify 
the  correctness  of  the  quotation  would  find  it  in  a  recent 
number  of  Les  Annales,  The  prediction  was  as  follows: 
"  I  believe  that  the  world  will  witness  two  more  great 
wars,  one  on  the  European  continent  in  which  the  Franco- 
Prussian  conflict  will  be  decided;  and  the  other  on  the 
sea  which  will  decide  the  question  of  naval  supremacy 
between  England  and  Germany.  France  and  Germany 
will  play  their  part  on  the  field  of  Belgium,  perhaps  in 
the  neighborhood  of  Waterloo,  for  it  is  the  only  free 
passage  which  permits  great  display  of  military  forces. 
The  actual  Franco-German  frontier  bristles  too  thickly 
with  fortifications,  so  that  perhaps,  on  both  sides,  the 
opponents  will  give  up  trying  to  force  them.  The  French 
will  be  victorious  over  the  Germans,  and  the  latter  will 
be  beaten  on  sea  by  the  English." 

The  pro-Germans  seized  upon  this  prophecy  as  an  un- 
deniable proof  of  French  and  English  hostility  to  Ger- 
many before  the  breaking  out  of  the  war.  How  could 
a  Japanese  venture  to  make  such  a  statement  if  he  had 
not  received  a  hint  from  French  or  English  authorities? 
This  is  not  the  only  prophecy  in  which  the  enmity  of 
France  is  betrayed,  along  with  her  avowed  determina- 
tion to  retake  Alsace  and  Lorraine.  Had  anybody  ever 
heard  of  a  certain  Mme.  de  Thebes  who  has  been  pre- 


THE  TRELOARS  301 

dieting  for  a  long  time  a  war  between  France  and  Ger- 
many and  the  consequent  fall  of  the  House  of  Hohen- 
zollern?  No,  Germany  had  done  exactly  the  right  thing 
to  strike  first  instead  of  waiting  to  be  struck.  And  so 
the  discussion  went  on,  day  after  day,  there  being  only 
two  points  upon  which  all  were  agreed;  namely,  that 
the  war  could  not  possibly  last  more  than  a  few  months, 
owing  to  the  vast  commercial  interests  involved,  and  the 
swift  and  deadly  character  of  modern  engines  of  de- 
struction ;  and  that  it  behooved  the  United  States  to  main- 
tain a  strict  neutrality,  not  for  reasons  of  humanity  and 
justice,  but  because  it  would  be  a  bad  thing  for  business, 
if  she  did  not.  This  decision  was  arrived  at  without  the 
least  difficulty  in  conceiving  a  collective  neutrality,  result- 
ing from  individual  partisanship. 

From  all  these  futile  repetitions  of  the  same  charges 
and  counter  charges,  so  familiar  to  the  newspaper  reader 
of  the  day,  Dick  was  glad  to  escape  and  take  refuge  in 
the  reading  of  Jean  Christophe  which  he  had  brought 
with  him  from  San  Francisco.  Above  the  roar  of  all  tem- 
poral conflicts,  remain  the  eternal  verities,  and  Dick  was 
searching  them  with  the  avidity  of  a  famished  man  for 
food.  He  had  come  near  ruining  his  own  life.  He  saw 
that  now.  The  sharp  agony  at  Nita's  death  which  had 
restored  her  image  to  him  in  the  colors  of  his  first  pas- 
sion was  passing  away,  and  the  truth  emerged,  when  the 
emotional  haze  was  dissipated.  He  shuddered  at  his 
blindness.  He  had  loved  passionately  everything  which 
in  his  heart  of  hearts  he  recoiled  from,  and  he  had  not 
recognized  it.  But  he  was  young  and  inexperienced.  He 
could  not  yet  distinguish  seeming  from  being;  but  his 
father  —  how  did  it  come  that  he  had  been  so  blind,  too, 
and  had  approved  his  choice?  Was  it  because  he  really 
knew  very  little  of  human  nature,  and  always  saw  it  in 
the  light  of  his  own  gentle  and  aspiring  moods,  as  Dr. 
Parker  maintained  women  do  ?  Had  he,  like  them,  some 
youthful  romantic  ideal  of  love  which  made  it  always 
beautiful  and  right  to  follow  its  impulses,  no  matter  what 
they  dictated,  or  where  they  led  ? 


302  THE  TRELOARS 

He  had  never  told  his  father  of  the  cruel  disillusion- 
ments  of  his  marriage.  He  had  never  spoken  to  any  one 
about  them.  Perhaps,  some  day,  still  far  distant,  he 
might  speak  of  them  to  Dolly,  but  to  no  one  else.  They 
lay  in  his  memory  like  the  burden  of  some  frightful  night- 
mare which  daylight  lifts,  but  which  comes  back  in 
the  solitude  of  night.  He  tried  to  reconstruct  the  image 
of  Nita,  as  she  was  in  reality,  and  as  he  had  never  per- 
ceived her.  He  recognized  the  keenness  of  her  intelli- 
gence fed  by  an  ardent  curiosity;  her  freedom  from  illu- 
sion combined  incongruously  with  her  susceptibility  of 
it;  her  want  of  character,  combined  with  her  power  of 
assuming  all  characters.  Brilliant  and  unsteady  as  a 
will  of  the  wisp,  and  like  it,  the  phosphorescent  glow  of 
marshy  exhalations,  she  had  no  place  in  the  world  as 
daughter,  sister,  wife,  or  mother,  but  only  as  a  beautiful 
simulachre  of  a  woman,  a  stimulus,  a  warning,  an  inter- 
pretation. 

Quitting  these  painful  reflections,  Dick  plunged  into 
his  book,  and  soon  lost  himself  in  it,  so  steeped  in  life 
was  it  from  the  first  page  to  the  last  —  life  in  all  its 
phases;  its  glory,  its  infamy;  its  grandeur,  its  puerility; 
its  tragedy,  its  farce.  It  threw  open  the  windows  of  his 
soul,  and  let  the  fresh  air  of  genius  blow  through  it. 
What  quantities  of  dust,  dry  rot,  and  moldy  smells 
it  swept  away!  What  a  tonic  it  was,  more  invigorating 
than  the  salt  sea  breeze  or  the  air  of  mountain  slopes! 
Dick  saw,  too,  how  Jean  Christophe's  fall  into  the  abyss 
might  well  succeed  his  triumphant  sense  of  strength,  as- 
surance, and  self-mastery  expressed  in  the  magnificently 
daring  cry :  "  Life  is  a  tragedy,  Hurrah ! " —  the  tragedy 
itself  being  for  him  no  more  than  a  trial  of  strength 
from  which  the  strong  emerge  stronger  than  ever.  And 
fate  overwhelms  him,  stretches  him  upon  her  wheel  of 
torture.  He  feels  himself  only  the  plaything  of  mysteri- 
ous forces,  a  bit  of  broken  straw  in  a  mighty  wind,  blown 
into  the  mud  and  slime  of  sin.  Then,  with  all  his  pride 
broken,  in  an  agony  of  horror,  repentance,  humility,  he 


THE  TRELOARS  303 

bows  before  the  unknown  force,  and  sees  God  in  the 
burning  bush,  sees  God  in  the  torrent  of  life  that  rolls 
from  leaf  to  flower,  from  soul  to  soul ;  feels  in  that  cease- 
less current  the  miraculous  power  of  resurrection  and  is 
born  into  real  strength  and  calm,  and  self-mastery,  and 
the  inspiring  solitude  of  the  artist  filled  with  the  creations 
of  his  brain. 

Dick  rose  from  his  reading  strengthened,  encouraged, 
inspired.  It  seemed  to  him  as  if  a  warm  human  hand 
had  been  stretched  out  to  him  in  the  darkness,  and  as  if 
a  beautiful  human  voice  had  spoken  words  of  cheer  and 
sympathy.  But  alas !  what  irony  it  seemed  in  the  face 
of  this  awful  war,  to  repeat  the  appreciative  statement 
of  an  Austrian  writer  that  Jean  Christ ophe  is  the  great- 
est thing  that  has  ever  been  done  since  the  Franco-Prus- 
sian war  to  bring  the  two  nations  France  and  Germany 
closer  together  in  a  mutual  understanding.  Dick  had 
lived  so  intimately  with  the  characters  of  the  book  that 
he  resented  the  war  almost  as  much  because  it  gave  the 
lie  to  the  optimistic  conclusion  of  the  book,  and  reduced 
to  the  level  of  fiction  what  was  so  warm  and  flush  with 
life,  as  he  was  that  it  gave  the  lie  to  the  optimistic  be- 
lief of  his  age  that  moral  progress  necessarily  accom- 
panies scientific  and  economic  progress. 

Was  European  civilization  passing  through  the  same 
crisis  which  Jean  Christophe  had  passed?  Had  science 
and  philosophy  not  declared  in  their  pride  that  civiliza- 
tion owes  no  debt  to  the  recognition  of  God,  and  that 
knowledge  and  science  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to 
produce  a  morality  nobler  and  higher  than  that  which 
has  its  sanction  and  obligation  in  religion?  Was  the 
lesson  of  the  French  Revolution  useless  now;  so  thor- 
oughly forgotten  that  it  must  be  taught  over  again  at 
the  same  fearful  price  of  agony  and  bloodshed  ? 

Dick  pondered  long  over  this  problem,  and  it  pained 
him  excessively  that  he  could  find  no  satisfactory  answer 
to  it.  The  skepticism  of  his  age  had  dyed  him  deeply, 
and  he  could  no  longer  mistake  the  emotionalism  of  an 


304  THE  TRELOARS 

hour  of  pain  or  sadness  for  a  religious  conviction.  He 
knew  too  well  from  his  own  experiences  that  such  hours 
are  critical  and  misleading,  because  the  yearning  of  the 
heart  makes  mute  the  voice  of  reason.  He  distrusted 
profundly  all  rainy  day  conversions,  and  he  said  now  to 
himself  that  his  convictions  must  belong  to  the  sunshine, 
before  he  could  trust  them. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

MARGARET  TRELOAR  and  her  father  were  spending  the 
day  at  the  Parkers;  and  staying  rather  late.  Margaret 
was  present  when  Dolly  was  putting  little  Eugene  to 
bed.  He  was  now  a  year  and  a  half  old,  a  beautiful 
and  playful  child,  precocious  in  learning  to  talk,  and  full 
of  promise. 

"  Dolly,"  said  Margaret,  flushing  brightly  and  speak- 
ing very  gently,  "  have  you  begun  teaching  Eugene  to 
say  his  prayers  when  he  goes  to  bed,  and  rises  in  the 
morning  ?  " 

Dolly  reddened  at  the  question,  and  answered  frankly : 

"  No,  I  haven't." 

"  Don't  you  think  that  we  ought  to  teach  him  ?  " 

"I  hadn't  thought  about  it  at  all,"  Dolly  faltered; 
"  you  know,  Margaret,  I  haven't  been  taught  as  you  were 
to  believe  in  prayer." 

"  I  know  it,  Dolly ;  and  thanks  to  your  own  beautiful 
character,  which  I  think  no  training  could  spoil,  you  are 
a  much  better  woman  than  I." 

"O,  Margaret!" 

"  Yes,  you  are,  Dolly." 

Margaret  took  Dolly's  hands  from  her  face  and  kissed 
her  affectionately.  She  was  very  fond  of  her. 

"  The  truth  is,  that  you  are  a  real  Christian,  Dolly, 
without  calling  yourself  that;  and  I  who  would  be  so 
glad  to  call  myself  a  Christian  feel  often  the  rebellious 


THE  TRELOARS  305 

pagan  in  me;  but  I  won't  talk  of  that  just  now;  see  how 
the  child  is  listening.  Come  here,  darling!  Come  to 
Aunt  Margaret !  " 

She  turned  to  the  child  who  was  looking  curiously 
and  attentively  at  them.  His  white  night  gown  covered 
his  feet,  and  in  starting  to  walk  towards  her,  his  little 
hands  outstretched,  he  stumbled  and  fell.  Margaret 
picked  him  up,  and  seating  herself  in  a  chair,  she  put  him 
on  the  floor  and  taught  him  to  kneel  at  her  lap.  He 
thought  she  was  teaching  him  a  new  game,  and  he  laughed 
and  clapped  his  hands,  when  she  wished  to  fold  them. 
Dolly  looked  on  with  beating  heart  and  a  feeling  of 
strangeness  and  discomfort,  as  if  a  barrier  were  being 
raised  between  herself  and  the  child.  Margaret  repeated 
the  child's  prayer:  "Now  I  lay  me  down  to  sleep"  and 
he  lisped  it  after  her  in  a  sweet  childish  treble.  It  ex- 
cited him  as  a  novelty,  and  Margaret  had  to  take  him 
in  her  arms  and  gently  rock  him,  and  sing  to  him,  before 
he  fell  asleep.  Then  having  laid  him  in  his  bed,  she 
went  softly  out  of  the  room  with  Dolly,  saying: 

"  Now,  I  want  to  tell  you  what  I  meant  by  saying  I 
wasn't  a  Christian.  Can't  we  go  into  the  spare  room 
here,  for  a  while  ?  I  want  to  talk  to  you  alone." 

"  Certainly."  Dolly  opened  the  bed-room  door,  and 
followed  Margaret  into  the  room  with  a  half -guilty  feel- 
ing of  embarrassment,  entirely  new  to  her. 

"  Take  this  chair,  Margaret ;  it  is  so  comfortable." 

Dolly  laid  her  hand  on  the  back  of  a  cane  rocking 
chair,  then  drew  up  a  smaller  one  for  herself.  Mar- 
garet looked  at  Dolly  in  silence  for  a  moment,  admir- 
ing the  rich  beauty  of  the  young  face  so  near  her.  Mar- 
garet herself  had  grown  thinner  and  paler,  but  there 
was  nothing  fretful  or  ascetic  in  her  appearance;  on 
the  contrary,  it  spoke  of  an  inner  calm  and  poise,  not 
attained,  perhaps,  without  a  great  struggle,  and  not  to 
be  lost  again.  This  struggle  carried  on  in  silence  and 
solitude  had  resulted  in  certain  convictions  which  Mar- 


3o6  THE  TRELOARS 

garet  felt  impelled  to  reveal  to  Dolly,  not  for  Dolly's 
sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  child  confided  to  her  care. 
So  she  began  at  once,  without  any  preamble: 

"  Dolly,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  to-night  what  I  thought 
I  should  never  reveal  to  anybody,  but  I  feel  now  that  you 
ought  to  know  it.  You  know  that  Dick's  marriage  was 
more  than  a  grief  to  me ;  it  was  a  torture  which  I  some- 
times wonder  how  I  ever  lived  through.  You  were  with 
me  when  the  news  first  came  to  me  and  you  saw  what  a 
blow  it  was  to  me.  But  after  that  first  shock,  you  never 
heard  me  complain.  I  was  too  proud  to  show  my  sor- 
row; it  was  sullen,  rebellious,  irreconcilable.  I  could 
see  no  reason  for  it;  but  now  I  know  what  unspeakable 
dross  there  was  in  my  heart  that  had  to  be  burnt  out  by 
this  fire;  and,  now,  I  would  not  have  it  otherwise  if  I 
could.  It  was  all  right,  Dolly,  O  so  right."  Margaret 
leaned  forward,  her  delicate  face  transfigured  by  the  glow 
of  her  emotion.  "  I  needed  to  learn  what  a  sophist  I 
was,  what  a  poor  limping,  blind  creature,  groping  here, 
falling  there,  and  quite  content  with  my  halting  gait  and 
my  darkness.  I  thought  it  possible  to  make  all  sorts  of 
happy  compromises  with  God's  truths,  interpreting 
them  in  my  own  way  to  suit  my  convenience.  For  ex- 
ample, I  thought  that  the  needs  of  the  disciples  were 
different  from  ours,  that  there  could  be  a  more  enlight- 
ened form  of  Christianity  in  correspondence  with  man's 
intellectual  progress.  Now  I  know  what  foolish  vanity, 
what  ridiculous  arrogance,  what  unpardonable  ignorance 
that  was !  I  mistook  all  the  trappings  of  creeds  and  the 
modern  forms  of  expediency  for  the  genuine  teachings 
of  Christ,  as  if  there  could  be  a  Christ  up-to-date  quite 
as  good  as,  but  quite  different  from,  the  Christ  who 
walked  the  shores  of  Galilee.  I  prided  myself  on  my 
breadth  and  my  tolerance,  as  if  there  were  some  partic- 
ular virtue  in  beating  out  my  Christianity  so  thin  that  it 
would  cover  a  vast  surface.  But  what  pit-falls  I  was 
preparing  for  myself !  I  thought  God  did  not  need  my 
love,  but  my  family  did;  —  but  my  pride  corrupted  all 


THE  TRELOARS  307 

my  feelings.  My  love  for  my  family  was  only  a  dis- 
guised love  for  myself.  I  wished  to  be  all  in  all  to 
them,  as  they  were  all  in  all  to  me,  and  when  I  learned 
that  I  meant  nothing  to  Dick " 

"  O,  Margaret ! "  exclaimed  Dolly,  deeply  pained  by 
Margaret's  confession,  "  there  never  was  a  time  that  you 
meant  nothing  to  Dick.  There  never  could  be  a  time  that 
you  meant  nothing  to  him ;  his  heart  is  big  enough  to  hold 
more  than  one  image." 

"  I  know  it,  now,"  answered  Margaret,  reassuringly. 
"  I  am  speaking  as  I  felt  then,  when  it  was  all  one  to  me 
whether  he  loved  me  not  at  all,  or  loved  another  more 
than  me.  I  could  not  bear  to  have  the  second  place  with 
him.  I  wanted  all  or  nothing;  so  I  broke  that  beautiful 
commandment :  '  Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged.'  I 
judged  Dick's  wife,  my  sister.  You  see  I  can  say  sister, 
now.  I  concealed  my  hatred  of  her  by  all  sorts  of  de- 
vices, such  as  solicitude  for  Dick;  I  even  feigned  an  out- 
ward kindness  to  her  that  had  no  place  in  my  heart.  She 
had  Dick,  and  after  that  I  would  have  given  her  any- 
thing but  myself.  I  was  miserably  unhappy;  but  I  did 
not  realize  the  barren  hideousness  of  my  soul  until  I 
stood  beside  her  coffin  and  looked  on  her  dead  face  with- 
out the  least  emotion,  the  least  throb  of  pity  for  her, 
stricken  in  her  youth.  O,  that  awful  chill  and  darkness, 
that  inner  petrifaction  of  my  once  living  soul!  I  could 
not  feel!  I  knew  it  was  horrible,  and  that  knowledge 
was  the  one  thing  that  saved  me.  Because  I  knew  it,  I 
struggled  for  life  in  the  chill  of  death.  I  prayed  and 
struggled  till  life  came  back  to  my  dying  soul  and  I  could 
feel,  and  I  could  love  again,  and  all  hatred  had  vanished 
from  my  heart.  Then  I  knew  that,  although  God  does 
not  need  our  love,  we  need  to  love  Him,  for  in  that  love 
alone,  can  we  find  rest  and  strength,  and  I  understood 
the  wisdom  of  Him,  who  said :  '  Give  not  thy  son  and 
wife,  thy  brother  and  friend  power  over  thee  while  thou 
live st.  ....  As  long  as  thou  livest  and  hast  breath  in 
thee,  give  not  thyself  over  to  any'  It  is  only  to  God  that 


308  THE  TRELOARS 

we  may  give  ourselves  over  and  reap  no  shame  from  the 
gift.  And,  Do^y,  I  am  telling  you  this,  that  you  may 
put  into  the  young  heart  of  our  dear  child  that  feeling  of 
love  an<j  reverence  for  the  Highest,  which  is  the  only 
safeguard  m  trial,  the  only  prop  when  everything  else 
gives  way  under  us.  Begin  by  having  him  say  his  even- 
ing and  morning  prayer.  It  isn't  necessary  to  teach 
him  anything  else  at  present.  He  wouldn't  understand, 
but  gradually  he  will  be  penetrated  by  a  vague  conscious- 
ness of  an  unknown  power  without  and  within  him;  then 
he  will  begin  to  ask  questions." 

"And  what  shall  I  answer  him,  I,  who  am  as  ignorant 
as  he?" 

"  You  will  know  what  to  answer  him,  Dolly ;  it  will 
come  to  you,  too." 

"  No,  it  won't,  Margaret,"  replied  Dolly,  pushing  back 
the  masses  of  her  dark  hair  and  looking  at  Margaret  with 
a  pained  and  puzzled  expression.  "  I  shall  not  know 
what  to  answer.  I  have  been  taught  that  we  come  from 
the  unknown  and  pass  into  the  unknown,  and  that  this 
moment  of  consciousness  which  we  call  life  may  be  made 
beautiful  or  hideous  in  accordance  with  the  manner  in 
which  we  accept  our  relations  with  others ;  one  way,  re- 
sulting in  that  hardening  which  you  have  just  called  death 
of  the  soul,  and  the  other,  through  the  recognition  of  duty 
and  love,  ending  in  more  life  and  richer  life. 

"  Ah,  Dolly,  dear,"  cried  Margaret  triumphantly,  her 
face  beaming  with  joy.  "  Don't  you  see  that  we  are  only 
disputing  about  a  question  of  names  ?  Call  the  unknown, 
God;  and  the  dutiful,  loving  relation  to  others  and  to 
Him,  religion,  and  we  both  view  life  in  exactly  the  same 
way." 

"  No,  Margaret,"  said  Dolly,  shaking  her  head  em- 
phatically. "  There  is  a  great  difference,  and  if  you  can't 
see  it,  you  are  falling  again  into  that  error,  you  deplored, 
of  making  your  own  interpretations  of  religion.  I  cannot 
pray  to  my  unknown,  or  think  of  it  as  a  conscious  en- 
tity, so  that  if  I  should  say :  '  Our  Father  who  art  in 


THE  TRELOARS  309 

heaven'  it  would  be  hypocrisy  in  me.     Don't  you  see ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  see,"  said  Margaret  sadly ;  "  but,  Dolly,  it 
isn't  hypocrisy  in  me,  and  it  cannot  be  hypocrisy  in  the 
innocent  baby,  and  faith  may  be  bread  to  him  some  day, 
when  his  soul  is  starving." 

Just  then  Mr.  Treloar's  voice  was  heard  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs,  shouting: 

"  Come  on,  Margaret ;  it  is  getting  late,  we  must  be 
going  home." 

"  Yes,  father,  I'm  coming." 

Margaret  rose,  and  taking  Dolly's  hands,  said :  "  You 
will  do  this  for  our  boy,  won't  you,  Dolly  ?  " 

Dolly  felt  forced  to  say  that  she  would ;  but  when  Mar- 
garet was  gone,  it  troubled  her  exceedingly  to  have  prom- 
ised anything  so  alien  to  her  mind.  She  had  that  rare 
quality  in  a  woman  —  perfect  straight-forwardness,  an 
inexpressible  hatred  for  all  forms  of  untruth,  from  the 
downright  lie  to  the  cowardly,  sneaking  form  of  am- 
biguity and  double-dealing.  Had  the  circumstances  of 
her  life  not  protected  her  from  the  consequences  of  this 
truthfulness,  she  would  undoubtedly  have  suffered  from 
it ;  for  the  world  does  not  let  pass  unchallenged  any  viola- 
tion of  its  formalities,  although  it  may  sometimes  confine 
its  disapproval  to  a  mere  criticism  of  what  it  calls  eccen- 
tricity or  a  love  of  singularity.  But  Dolly  was  neither 
eccentric  nor  a  lover  of  singularity,  but  only  a  very 
healthy,  perfectly  normal  young  woman,  who  loved  the 
light. 

Now,  she  was  confronted  by  what,  to  her,  was  the 
most  ignoble  of  dilemmas,  either  to  teach  the  child  en- 
trusted to  her  care  what  she  herself  did  not  believe,  or 
allow  Margaret  to  teach  it.  She  brooded  over  the  prob- 
lem through  the  night,  unable  to  sleep  for  the  distress 
it  caused  her;  and,  for  the  first  time,  she  felt  vexed 
with  Margaret  for  her  interference.  "  The  child  is 
mine"  thought  Dolly  wrathf ully,  " and  I  have  a  right  to 
do  with  my  own  what  I  will ; "  but  Dolly  was  too  just 
to  persist  long  in  this  error.  Tossing  the  matter  in  her 


i 


310  THE  TRELOARS 

thoughts,  she  soon  realized  that  she  was  nearing  the 
very  fault  which  Margaret  had  so  humbly  confessed  — 
an  absorbing,  selfish  love,  which  would  mold  its  object  in 
its  own  image.  She  saw,  too,  that  this  was  not  her  little 
personal  problem  alone,  but  the  problem  of  every  mother, 
and  of  every  person  whose  task  it  is,  to  rear  a  child  in  a 
Christian  land.  Shall  I  teach  him  that  the  essence  of  re- 
ligion is  the  consciousness  of  the  tie  which  binds  me  to  my 
fellow  man  in  the  form  of  a  responsibility  to  do  to  him 
as  I  would  be  done  by ;  and  that  faith  is  the  especial  form 
which  that  consciousness  takes  from  the  great  moral 
genius  of  each  race  who  first  promulgated  it?  Or  shall 
I  teach  him  that  faith  and  religion  are  one,  and  that  there 
can  be  but  one  true  faith  and  one  true  religion,  and  that 
is  the  prevailing  faith  and  religion  of  the  country  under 
whose  flag  he  chanced  to  be  born;  and  the  great  moral 
genius  who  taught  it  was  not  man,  but  God  incarnate? 
For  her  own  part,  Dolly  would  not  have  hesitated  a 
moment.  She  herself  had  been  taught  that  faith  is  a 
question  of  geography,  and  religion  a  question  of  hu- 
manity. She  had  read  the  Bible  as  she  had  read  ancient 
history  and  ancient  mythology  with  this  difference,  that 
she  recognized  the  incalculable  superiority  of  the  Bible 
in  its  passion,  power,  poetry,  wealth  of  imagery,  under- 
standing of  the  human  heart  and  its  needs,  and  in  the 
New  Testament,  its  high  morality.  She  had  never  ex- 
perienced the  reaction  from  passionate  faith  to  skepti- 
cism, therefore,  had  never  known  the  nausea  and  hatred 
of  the  deceived,  who  discover  their  error ;  and  once,  when 
a  volume  of  Ingersoll's  lectures  was  put  into  her  hands, 
she  was  shocked  by  the  jests  and  sneers,  and  felt  so 
strongly  repelled  by  the  low  vulgarity  which  could  de- 
grade the  highest  instincts  of  the  human  heart,  that  it  was 
difficult  for  her  to  reconcile  the  buffoonery  of  the  iconoclast 
with  the  fact  that  the  iconoclast  himself  had  the  warm 
impulsive  heart  of  a  child.  Her  father  had  known  him 
and  loved  him  dearly.  Renan's  Life  of  Jesus  affected 
her  much  in  the  same  way.  This  modern  fictitious  treat- 


THE  TRELOARS  311 

ment  of  the  exquisite  spirituality  of  Christ;  the  cool  ef- 
frontery of  this  attempt  to  fill  out  the  original  narrative 
by  setting  down  mere  conjectures  as  accepted  facts;  this 
substitution  of  a  heated  and  sensuous  imagination  for  the 
beautiful  simplicity  of  the  narrative  of  the  apostles  who 
gave  us  the  essence  of  heart  and  brain,  instead  of  the  cut 
of  the  sandals  and  the  appearance  of  the  landscape,  were 
exceedingly  repulsive  to  her.  Surely,  he  who  gives  a 
great  hope  or  a  great  moral  uplift  to  the  human  heart 
is  entitled  —  even  from  the  unbeliever  —  to  as  much  re- 
spect and  gratitude  as  the  secular  poet  or  artist. 

She  knew  that  Margaret  would  never  be  satisfied  with 
any  teaching  that  did  not  recognize  a  deity  incarnate ;  yet 
how  could  she  teach  what  she  felt  was  not  true?  Then 
the  dangerous  thought  flashed  through  her  mind :  "  How 
do  I  know  it  isn't  true  ?  It  isn't  true  for  me,  but  if  it  is 
true  for  Margaret,  what  right  have  I  to  say  that  my  truth 
is  the  truth,  and  hers  is  not?  How  can  we  know  truth 
anyway,  we  who  are  but  atoms  in  an  infinite  universe? 
We  can  only  have  a  little  two-inch  rule  by  which  to  meas- 
ure each  other  in  this  tiny  corner  of  the  universe,  and 
this  fragment  of  time.  What  difference  does  it  make 
which  fractional  part  of  the  whole  truth  we  get  hold  of, 
if  it  only  works  out  well  in  our  lives?  Ah,  baby  boy, 
baby  boy ! "  she  leaned  over  and  touched  the  child's 
crib  by  her  bed,  "  you  don't  know  what  a  philosopher 
your  poor  old  mamma  is  trying  to  make  of  herself  for 
your  sake.  She'll  teach  you  to  say  '  Our  Father'  but 
when  you  are  old  enough  to  understand,  she'll  tell  you 
what  she  thinks  is  true.  I  must  talk  with  father  about 
that,  to-morrow." 

She  rose  bright  and  early  to  talk  with  him  about  it, 
leaving  the  baby  in  charge  of  the  maid  and  going  out 
for  a  walk  with  him  after  breakfast.  She  told  him  of 
her  promise  to  Margaret  and  her  sleepless  night  with 
its  tormenting  questions.  Then  she  ended: 

"  If  a  moral  truth  works  out  better  than  another  one 
in  making  life  beautiful  for  everybody,  why  shouldn't  we 


312  THE  TRELOARS 

accept  it  as  a  truth  and  stop  bothering  our  heads  about 
just  how  big  a  truth  it  is?  It  is  big  enough  for  us ;  that's 
all  that  concerns  us,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  Dolly,  you're  a  pragmatist !  " 

"  A  what,  Daddy  ?  I  knew  I  was  getting  to  be  some- 
thing over  night,  but  I  didn't  know  it  was  as  bad  as  that. 
A  pragmatist!  What's  a  pragmatist?  " 

"  Pragmatism,  my  child,  is  intellectual  laziness.  It's 
the  acceptance  of  a  half-truth  for  a  whole  one,  on  the 
principle  that  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  no  loaf  at  all. 
The  pragmatist  is  the  man  who  sets  out  to  get  the  pot 
of  gold  at  the  end  of  the  rainbow,  and  stops  short  on  the 
way  to  pick  up  a  brass  farthing  that  will  buy  him  a  pot 
of  beer." 

"Well,  isn't  he  sensible?  Isn't  his  thirst  the  first 
pressing  need  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  but  he  shouldn't  call  his  brass  farthing,  or 
his  pot  of  beer,  the  pot  of  gold." 

"Does  he  do  that?" 

"  Yes,  the  pragmatist  calls  the  half-truth  which  fits  his 
needs,  the  whole  truth,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned,  and  is 
content.  The  real  philosopher  is  incapable  of  that  easy 
satisfaction.  He  may  be  forced  to  pick  up  the  brass 
farthing  for  his  use,  but  he  never,  for  a  moment,  dreams 
that  it  has  more  than  its  face  value.  He  knows  clearly 
the  difference  between  the  true  and  the  expedient;  and, 
because  of  that,  he  wants  no  half  truths,  he  wants  the 
whole  truth.  He  seeks  the  absolute,  not  the  relative.  To 
a  certain  extent,  we  are  all  of  us  pragmatists.  Take  Kant, 
for  example ;  he  was  a  philosopher  in  the  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason;  and  he  was  a  pragmatist  in  the  Critique  of  Prac- 
tical Reason.  The  logic  of  pure  reason  ended  in  the  de- 
nial of  any  indubitable  proof  of  God,  freedom,  and  im- 
mortality. The  logic  of  practical  reason  assumes  them 
all  as  conditions  of  morality,  and  reasons  for  being." 

"  Well,  if  a  great  philosopher  like  Kant  is  permitted  to 
wabble  about  like  that,  I  think  that  a  poor  young  woman 
with  a  problem  on  her  hand  might  be  allowed  to  wabble  a 


THE  TRELOARS  313 

little,  too,  without  being  called  hard  names,  don't  you 
think  so  ? " 

"  Yes,  so  long  as  she  really  knows  that  she  is  wabbling 
and  not  walking  straight." 

"  O,  I  should  know  that,  father.  I  begin  to  feel  so 
frightfully  ignorant,  and  it  never  troubled  me  in  the  least, 
until  now.  I  do  love  the  truth,  I  do  really  hunger  for  it ; 
but  I  see  that  I  am  not  big  enough  to  reach  it  and  the 
half  truth  within  my  grasp  must  do  the  service  of  the 
whole,  and  perhaps,  father,"  her  face  brightened  as  she 
spoke,  "  the  whole  truth  would  crush  me  with  its  im- 
mensity, and  after  all  there  are  lovely,  nourishing  illu- 
sions that  are  as  good  for  hungry  souls  as  truths,  perhaps 
better.  I  am  glad  you  never  killed  the  love  of  fairy 
stories  in  me,  nor  destroyed  the  pretty  little  myth  of 
Santa  Claus  that  just  naturally  dried  up  and  fell  off  me 
like  the  seed  leaves  of  a  plant,  when  they  are  no  longer 
of  any  use  to  it.  And  I  have  loved  the  Bible,  Apocrypha, 
and  all.  It  is  strewn  all  over  with  nuggets  of  gold,  wise 
precepts  of  life,  prudent  counsel,  and  its  language  is  full 
of  music  and  color.  I  shall  read  from  it  a  great  deal  to 
Eugene,  when  he  is  a  little  older.  No  one  should  grow 
up  ignorant  of  the  Christian  story,  whether  he  believes  it 
or  not,  should  he  ?  " 

"Of  course  not,  Dolly,  especially  in  a  Christian  land 
that  spends  millions  on  heathens  in  foreign  countries ; 
and,  again,  no  so-called  free-thinkers  ought  to  put  Christ 
on  a  lower  level  than  Plato  and  Socrates;  for  his  phi- 
losophy of  life,  if  really  lived  and  not  mouthed,  though 
it  may  be  incompatible  with  what  the  world  calls  com- 
mercial progress,  is  the  straightest  road  to  moral  progress 
that  has  ever  been  pointed  out ;  and  if  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope were  on  it  to-day,  we  shouldn't  be  witnesses  of  the 
horrible  wholesale  murder  that  is  going  on  there.  O 
Dolly,  it  shames  me  to  the  heart  to  witness  this  second 
fall  of  man  from  eating  too  freely  of  the  fruit  of  knowl- 
edge—  and  all  my  life  I  have  thought  that  knowledge 
is  power  in  the  highest  as  well  as  the  lowest  sense.  What 


3H  THE  TRELOARS 

is  the  use  of  building  laboratories  to  search  the  secrets 
of  nature,  if  we  are  to  employ  our  knowledge  in  self- 
destruction.  That's  the  one  thing  Phil  and  I  agreed  on 
last  night.  He  says  the  war  is  the  logical  conclusion 
of  the  slogan  of  our  age  which  is  no  longer:  'Be  a 
Christian !  Be  a  good  man !  Be  a  gentleman ! '  but  '  Be 
a  sport ! '  I  guess  he's  right." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

DICK'S  lively  imagination  had  recommended  him  to 
Cressy,  when  he  had  selected  him  for  a  war  correspond- 
ent, and  his  chief  had  said  to  him  in  parting: 

"  Now  remember,  Treloar,  that  a  good  reporter's  first 
business  is  to  supply  copy,  and  to  invent  a  scene  when 
he  can't  see  it.'  War  is  damnable  butchery.  You  can't 
be  off  color  in  the  carnage-line,  no  matter  how  bloody 
you  paint  it;  but  be  as  dispassionate  as  possible.  Stand 
above  the  conflict.  Be  an  eye  that  sees  and  a  tongue 
that  reports,  but  don't  let  the  pulsations  of  your  heart  be 
felt  in  the  reports.  Don't  forget  that  our  role  is  a  neu- 
tral one.  We  have  readers  of  all  nations  to  please,  and 
we  don't  want  the  subscription  list  to  grow  smaller.  Our 
readers  want  facts  and  pictures ;  they  don't  want  opin- 
ions. They  have  their  own  opinions  ready  made  from 
their  birth,  and  nothing  you  can  say  or  do  can  change 
them.  The  cruelties  of  their  ancestral  nations  will  be 
virtues  in  their  eyes,  and  they  will  strike  medals  to  com- 
memorate their  atrocities ;  brute  ferocity  will  be  courage ; 
lying,  plundering,  breaking  of  treaties  will  be  astute- 
ness. In  the  enemy,  the  same  things  will  be  barbarism." 

Dick  had  received  his  directions  without  a  comment ; 
but  though  his  lively  imagination  had  pictured  the  horrors 
of  war  vividly  enough  in  a  general  way,  he  found  the 
reality  of  its  details  far  more  horrible  than  it  had  been  in 
his  power  to  conceive.  As  for  standing  above  the  con- 
flict that  might  be  a  possible  attitude  for  the  solitary 


THE  TRELOARS  315 

philosopher  shut  in  among  his  books  in  his  library,  or  for 
the  business  man  locked  in  his  office,  quietly  smoking  his 
cigar  and  casting  up  his  profits ;  but  to  the  man  who  was  a 
witness  of  the  conflict,  who  heard  the  roar  of  the  flames  as 
they  destroyed  towns  and  villages  and  devoured  the 
beautiful  monuments  of  the  past,  enshrined  in  the  mem- 
ory of  man ;  who  saw  the  bent  and  shivering  forms  of 
women  and  children,  widowed  and  orphaned,  and  the 
silent  futile  despair  of  the  old,  and  the  blood-stained 
ground  strewn  with  the  flower  of  manhood,  lifeless  and 
mangled  beyond  recognition;  who  saw  the  air  rain  mis- 
siles of  death,  and  felt  the  solid  earth  rock  beneath  his 
feet  —  to  one  who  saw  these  things,  there  was  something 
shudderingly  repulsive  in  the  calm,  impartial  attitude  of 
neutrality.  What  was  there  to  say  that  could  lessen  or 
magnify  the  odium  and  hideousness  of  it,  or  shorten  by  a 
step  this  frenzied  race  into  the  arms  of  death?  But 
there  was  still  a  world  of  good  to  be  done;  innumerable 
acts  of  kindness  and  mercy  to  be  shown  in  relieving  the 
distress  of  the  hungry  and  the  homeless,  and  in  this  di- 
rection, his  own  country  was  alert  and  generous,  and 
he  had  not  to  blush  for  her  coldness.  There  were  count- 
less things  to  be  done  for  the  wounded  and  dying,  and 
after  trying  himself  out  in  various  directions,  Dick  finally 
severed  his  connection  with  his  newspaper,  and  entered 
the  field  service  of  France  as  a  driver  in  an  ambulance 
corps. 

It  was  a  work  requiring  courage,  coolness,  endurance. 
Courage  and  endurance  he  had  in  full  measure,  but  he 
had  to  school  himself  to  calmness  in  the  presence  of  an- 
guish. He  felt  from  the  beginning  that  peculiar,  inexpli- 
cable conviction  of  exemption  from  danger  which  is  not 
so  much  courage  as  the  natural  accompaniment  of  youth 
and  vigor.  Shrapnel  and  ball,  and  asphyxiating  gas 
might  kill  his  comrades,  but  he  himself  felt  secure,  as  if 
nature  had  some  particular  design  in  sheltering  him  from 
harm.  He  learned  to  hear  without  wincing  the  hideous 
clamor  of  bursting  shells  and  hissing  balls ;  but  he  never 


316  THE  TRELOARS 

visited  the  fields  of  the  slain,  the  dying  and  the  wounded, 
without  experiencing  the  same  intensity  of  horror,  the 
same  nausea,  and  revulsion  at  this  awful  spectacle  of 
human  agony  and  human  wickedness,  this  blind  ferocity, 
which  made  the  senselessness  of  the  beast  beautiful  in 
comparison  with  the  intelligence  of  man.  He  had  wor- 
shiped the  intelligence,  feeling  it  the  crowning  gift  of 
life ;  and  now  it  seemed  an  accursed  thing.  Of  what  use 
the  long  arduous  struggle  from  the  cave-man  to  the  man 
in  the  palace,  if  the  struggle  must  end  in  a  creature  with 
a  cunning  brain  and  a  seared  heart  more  odious  with 
all  his  poor,  glittering  trappings  of  wealth  and  power 
than  the  naked,  gibbering  creature  from  whom  he  de- 
scended ? 

"Savage  patriotism  and  ferocity"  how  admirably  the 
words  written  by  Tolstoi  twenty  years  before,  fitted  the 
scenes  among  which  Dick  lived ;  and  how  admirably  they 
foreshadowed  that  fatal  paranoia  in  a  monarch  which 
gives  him  the  power  of  infecting  a  whole  nation  with  his 
hallucinations  of  danger;  for  Dick  saw  clearly  that  this 
ferocity  burned  in  the  hearts  of  the  rulers  rather  than  in 
the  hearts  of  the  fighters,  who  were  but  the  passive  in- 
struments of  their  hatreds,  mere  pawns  pushed  from  the 
chessboard  of  life  by  inexorable,  white,  jeweled  fingers 
that  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  push  —  well  out  of  dan- 
ger themselves,  in  comfort  and  luxury.  But  he  real- 
ized, also,  that  the  game,  once  begun,  must  be  played 
through  to  the  bitter  end,  played  till  the  challenging 
king  should  be  checkmated  forever. 

It  was  the  third  winter  of  Dick's  service  at  the  front. 
He  had  grown  gaunt  and  hollow-eyed,  and  his  once  clear 
and  fresh  complexion  was  tanned  and  ruddied  by  the 
wind  and  sun,  but  his  health  was  good,  and  he  had  not 
lost  a  day  at  his  task.  The.  great  siege  of  Verdun  was 
going  on.  Backwards  and  forwards  surged  the  oppos- 
ing forces  among  the  succession  of  heights,  ravines,  and 
woods  which  surround  the  fortress.  "Hold  on,  cost 
what  it  may!  Don't  recoil  at  any  price!  Be  killed  to  the 


THE  TRELOARS  317 

last  man  rather  than  yield  an  inch  of  ground!"  were  the 
orders  of  the  French  commanders,  and  the  fortress,  week 
after  week,  month  after  month,  held  on  in  biting  winter 
winds  and  shriveling  summer  heat,  under  a  crushing, 
roaring,  hissing  rain  of  steel  and  iron  that  demolished 
village  after  village,  uprooted  forests  and  scattered  their 
trees  in  splinters  over  the  shivering  earth,  and  strewed 
with  the  dead  the  patient  soil  which  year  after  year  had 
borne  its  rich  harvests  for  the  living. 

It  was  after  one  of  the  terrific  assaults  and  repulses, 
in  early  March,  that  Dick  went  out  with  the  ambulance 
corps  on  its  errand  of  mercy.  It  was  a  chill,  raw  day, 
the  air  damp  and  heavy  with  a  threatening  storm;  and 
the  sky  grew  thicker  and  darker,  as  they  approached  the 
fields  of  death  over  which  the  black  smoke  of  the 
battle  still  hovered,  rent  from  time  to  time  by  sinister 
flashes  of  fire.  Silently,  quickly  the  men  went  about 
their  task,  searching  among  mangled  bodies  for  those 
in  whom  life  was  not  yet  extinct.  Tenderly,  gently,  they 
gave  them  all  possible  care,  lifting  them  on  to  stretchers 
and  carrying  them  to  the  ambulance  wagons.  Many 
begged  to  be  killed  outright,  to  put  an  end  to  their  suf- 
ferings. Some  cursed  the  hands  that  touched  them,  and 
others  blessed  them,  and  some,  unconscious  of  any  touch, 
murmured  in  their  delirium  the  one  sweet  word  which  in 
all  languages  is  the  symbol  of  the  tenderest,  most  un- 
wearied compassion,  "  Mother!  Mother  I"  Dick's  heart 
beat  fast;  he  set  his  lips  tight  together  to  suppress  the 
anguish  and  horror  which  he  felt.  Swiftly  he  moved 
among  these  helpless  wrecks  of  men  who,  but  yesterday 
—  nay  only  an  hour  or  two  ago  —  had  moved  among  the 
living,  strong  and  fearless  as  himself.  He  murmured 
tender  words  of  affectionate  sympathy  to  friend  or  foe, 
alike,  where  all  feelings  of  partisanship  were  effaced 
before  an  agony  that  lifted  them  all  above  the  conflict. 

The  snow  began  to  fall,  the  air  to  darken;  the  short 
winter  day  was  nearing  to  its  close,  and  one  by  one,  the 
long  train  of  ambulances  with  their  freight  of  human 


3i8  THE  TRELOARS 

wretchedness  had  started  for  the  field  hospital.  Dick, 
glancing  eagerly  about  in  the  fading  light,  discerned  a 
dark,  shapeless  form  at  some  distance  from  where  he 
was  working,  and  shouted  to  a  young  American,  who  like 
himself,  had  enlisted  in  the  French  service: 

"  Wait  a  minute,  Dan,  till  I  see  if  anybody  needs  us 
yonder." 

He  hurried  to  the  spot,  stumbling  over  the  broken 
ground,  and  bent  over  the  prostrate  form  lying  on  its 
face.  He  turned  the  body  over,  looked  intently  at  the 
blood-stained  face,  and  then  recoiled  with  a  cry. 

"  What's  the  matter,  Dick  ? "  called  his  companion, 
hurrying  towards  him. 

Dick  could  just  manage  to  say,  with  a  pitiful  break  in 
his  voice :  "  I  knew  him,  Dan.  It's  an  old  friend  of 
mine,  Max  Gietmann." 

"  Is  he  dead  ?  "  asked  Dick's  companion,  bending  over 
the  body  in  his  turn  and  noticing  that  it  was  clothed  in 
the  uniform  of  a  German  officer.  "  On  the  wrong  side," 
he  thought,  but  he  did  not  say  it;  for  he  knew  that  just 
now,  to  Dick,  there  was  no  side.  So  he  said  quietly: 

"  Cheer  up,  old  chap.  It  can't  be  helped.  His  troubles 
are  all  over  now,  and  we  must  go  back  to  camp  with  the 
wounded." 

"  No,  Dan,  I'm  not  going  back  yet.  I  can't  leave  him 
here  to  lie  on  the  ground  all  night.  I'm  going  to  bury 
him." 

"  But  we  can't  wait  for  that,  now,  you  know,"  and  Dan 
put  his  hand  affectionately  on  Dick's  shoulder.  "  We 
have  to  go  back  with  this  load  now.  The  ground  is 
frozen,  it'll  take  an  hour  or  two  to  dig  a  grave." 

"  I  know  it,  but  I  am  not  going  back  with  you.  I  can 
walk.  Just  go  on.  I'll  get  the  pick  and  spade." 

"  Well,  I'll  tell  you,  Dick,  what  I'll  do,"  replied  Dan, 
seeing  that  it  was  useless  to  argue.  "  When  you're 
through,  strike  into  the  main  road  back  to  the  camp,  and 
I'll  come  back  to  meet  you  in  an  auto  just  as  soon  as  I've 
unloaded." 


THE  TRELOARS  319 

"  All  right,  Dan,  thank  you." 

Dick  took  the  pick  and  spade  and  went  back  to  the 
little  clump  of  jagged,  broken  stumps,  where  once  had 
stood  a  leafy  grove,  and  near  which  now  lay  the  dead  body 
of  his  youthful  friend.  His  heart  was  heavy  as  lead,  and 
his  throat  swelled  painful. 

Poor  Max!  Dick  forgot  all  his  faults,  his  arrogance, 
his  egotism,  his  stubborn  will  to  dominate,  right  or  wrong. 
He  remembered  only  their  sunny  hours  of  friendship,  the 
proud  intellect  that  called  no  man  master,  but  preferred 
to  search,  to  inquire,  to  doubt,  till  it  found  its  own  solu- 
tion to  its  problems.  It  is  true  that  in  later  years,  the 
two  friends  had  drifted  far  apart  intellectually,  but  deep 
in  the  heart  of  each  had  persisted  a  strong  affection  which 
no  difference  in  opinion  had  destroyed.  Only  yesterday, 
in  a  quiet  pause  in  his  work,  Dick  had  been  thinking  of 
Max,  wondering  what  he  was  doing,  where  he  was,  and  if 
he  were  beginning  to  realize  the  awful  results  of  the  will 
to  power,  which  he  had  adopted  as  the  guide  to  his  life ; 
and  the  no  less  terrible  results  of  anarchy  in  thought, 
morals,  and  conduct;  and  that  the  law  of  brotherly  love 
is  as  imperative  in  the  world  of  soul,  as  the  law  of  gravi- 
tation in  the  physical  world,  without  which  there  would 
be  nothing  but  chaos. 

"  O,  Max ! "  he  cried ;  his  chest  heaved  convulsively, 
and  he  buried  his  face  in  his  hands. 

When  he  rose  from  his  kneeling  posture,  he  noticed 
that  it  had  grown  very  much  darker,  and  he  knew  that 
he  must  hurry  his  task  if  he  wished  to  complete  it  before 
night-fall.  He  threw  off  his  long  overcoat,  with  its  cir- 
cular cape,  and  with  feverish  haste,  he  began  to  dig  close 
to  the  body,  so  that  he  could  lower  it  into  the  grave  with- 
out difficulty.  The  frozen  soil  made  his  task  a  difficult 
one,  so  that  by  the  time  he  had  completed  it,  he  was  drip- 
ping with  sweat,  and  pausing  for  a  moment,  before  at- 
tempting to  lower  the  body  into  the  grave,  he  felt  a  sud- 
den chill  run  over  him.  He  had  dug  the  grave,  but  not 
so  deep  that  standing  within  it,  he  would  have  any  diffi- 


320  THE  TRELOARS 

culty  in  reaching  the  body,  at  the  edge  of  it.  As  he  lifted 
the  body,  a  small  notebook  fell  from  one  of  the  pockets, 
and  after  carefully  adjusting  the  body  in  the  grave,  Dick 
picked  up  the  notebook,  wiped  the  snow  from  it,  and 
was  about  to  put  it  into  his  own  pocket  as  a  precious  sou- 
venir of  his  friend,  when  the  thought  occurred  to  him 
that  to  do  this,  was  to  violate  the  privacy  of  the  dead,  and 
stooping  once  more,  he  put  the  book  back  into  the  pocket 
from  which  it  had  fallen.  Then  feeling  a  shudder  of  re- 
pugnance at  the  thought  of  throwing  the  heavy  clods  of 
frozen  earth  into  the  bruised,  stained  face  and  staring 
eyes,  Dick  took  his  outer  coat  and  spread  it  carefully  over 
the  body,  then,  climbing  out  of  the  grave,  filled  it  up  with 
nervous  haste  and  laid  his  tools  and  a  pile  of  brushwood 
over  it  as  a  mark  by  which  to  recognize  it  when  he  should 
return  in  the  daylight. 

By  the  time  he  had  finished  it  was  quite  dark  and  the 
snow  was  falling  faster.  The  roaring  of  artillery  was  still 
heard  from  time  to  time,  and  sudden  gleams  of  red  light 
flashed  through  the  snow-filled  air  illuminating  the 
dreary  landscape  for  a  moment.  By  one  of  these  flashes 
Dick  perceived  that  he  was  nowhere  near  the  main  road, 
leading  back  to  the  camp,  and  that  in  the  reaction  of  ex- 
haustion and  weariness  increased  by  depressing  emo- 
tion he  had  lost  his  sense  of  direction.  For  a  moment, 
the  cowardly  wish  to  yield  to  the  drowsy  weariness  came 
over  him.  It  would  be  so  easy  to  sink  to  the  ground  and 
let  the  exhaustion,  the  cold,  and  the  snow  have  their  will 
with  him.  What  was  life  but  a  succession  of  disillu- 
sions and  pain?  Why  should  he  mourn  for  Max?  He 
was  at  rest ;  it  was  he  himself  whose  fate  was  pitiable,  for 
he  had  still  to  carry  about  with  him  the  heavy  burden  of 
a  painful  consciousness. 

But  deep  within  him,  the  strong  instinct  of  life  was 
urging  him  forward,  stumbling,  panting,  straining  his 
eyes  through  the  darkness,  feeling  the  wet  snow  on  his 
face  and  hands,  feeling  it  cling  about  his  feet,  collecting 
in  balls  under  his  boot-heels  and  impeding  his  progress. 


THE  TRELOARS  321 

Once  his  coat  caught  on  a  jagged  piece  of  projecting  wire 
and  in  tearing  himself  loose,  he  scratched  his  hands  badly 
and  the  keen  cold  air  gave  a  stinging  sharpness  to  the 
wounds.  He  had  left  his  gloves  in  his  overcoat  pocket, 
and  he  tried  now  to  protect  his  hands  from  the  cold,  and 
from  the  burning  pain  of  the  deep  scratches  by  putting 
them  under  his  arm-pits  and  pressing  them  against  his 
body.  But  the  position  was  unfavorable  for  walking, 
the  ground  was  rough  and  uneven  —  plowed  in  places  by 
iron  missiles.  He  began  to  suspect  that  he  was  wander- 
ing far  from  the  main  road.  Then  he  suddenly  recol- 
lected Dan's  promise.  He  stood  still  and  listened  in- 
tently for  the  sound  of  an  approaching  machine,  and 
looked  for  the  gleaming  of  its  lamps,  but  no  sound  broke 
the  stillness  except  the  rush  of  the  wind  and  the  fall  of 
the  snow  on  his  garments,  and  nothing  was  visible.  He 
felt  dizzy,  slightly  nauseated,  and  trembled  with  ex- 
haustion. He  knew  he  would  never  be  able  to  make  his 
way  back  to  the  camp,  but  he  felt  neither  fear  nor  re- 
gret, only  confusion  and  lethargy,  a  troubled  sense  of  life 
flickering  low  and  shadowy,  like  a  dying  flame.  In  one 
of  the  upward  flashes  of  the  flame,  he  tried  with  all  his 
might  to  collect  himself  for  a  supreme  effort,  and  put- 
ting his  fingers  to  his  lips,  he  blew  a  loud  shrill  whistle. 
The  wind  blew  sharper,  the  snow  fell  thicker  and  faster, 
he  staggered  forward,  involuntarily  groaning;  suddenly 
his  feet  struck  a  treacherous  bit  of  ice,  he  slipped  and 
fell  backward,  his  head  striking  a  stone.  A  sensation  of 
keen,  cutting  pain  and  of  an  explosion  of  a  thousand 
bright,  sparkling  lights  about  him,  and  he  knew  nothing 
more. 

CHAPTER  XXXV 

IT  was  a  lovely  April  morning,  and  through  the  field 
hospital,  covered  with  tents  like  the  shores  of  a  summer 
watering  place,  the  breath  of  spring  was  blowing,  carry- 
ing with  it  the  fresh  sweet  odors  of  the  fruitful  earth 


322  THE  TRELOARS 

and  the  melodious  whistling  of  birds.  In  one  of  these 
white  tents,  facing  the  east,  a  stalwart  fellow  was  seated 
by  a  narrow  cot  on  which  lay  a  white  and  wasted  figure, 
profoundly  sleeping. 

The  young  man  was  reading,  and  from  time  to  time, 
put  down  his  book  to  look  intently  at  his  charge,  or  to 
lay  his  hand  lightly  on  the  sick  man's  cheeks,  to  assure 
himself  that  he  had  no  fever  or  ta  draw  the  coverlet  up 
more  closely  about  his  shoulders,  lest  a  draught  from  the 
open  entrance  might  chill  him.  A  small,  round  clock  on 
the  table  near  the  bed,  pointed  to  ten.  A  glass,  covered 
with  a  saucer,  in  which  lay  a  teaspoon,  stood  near  the 
clock.  The  young  man  looked  at  his  charge,  then  at  the 
clock,  shook  his  head  and  resumed  his  reading.  At  that 
moment,  a  surgeon,  who  was  making  his  morning  round, 
entered  the  tent  and  nodding  to  the  young  man,  who  had 
risen  with  a  polite  salutation,  he  said,  taking  the  patient's 
hand  and  counting  his  pulse  beats: 

"  No  fever  this  morning.  That's  good.  How  did  he 
pass  the  night  ?  " 

"  Very  restless  the  greater  part  of  the  night,  and  still 
delirious.  About  two  o'clock,  he  fell  into  this  deep  sleep, 
and  I  thought  it  best  not  to  wake  him  to  give  him  his 
medicine." 

"  That's  right ;  but  if  he  doesn't  wake  before  noon, 
you'd  better  rouse  him,  and  give  him  something  light  and 
nourishing.  He  needs  food  now,  in  very  small  quantities 
at  first,  and  at  intervals  of  two  or  three  hours.  I'll  drop 
in  again  before  night." 

"You  think  he's  coming  out  all  right,  Doctor?" 

"  O,  yes,  no  doubt  about  it,  but  he's  had  a  narrow  es- 
cape." 

"  I  should  think  so !  Another  hour  on  that  damp  field, 
and  we  should  have  had  to  lay  him  beside  his  friend." 

The  doctor  nodded  in  assent  and  went  on  his  way.  The 
young  man  put  his  book  down  on  the  table  and  sauntered 
out  into  the  open  space  before  the  tent,  and  watched  the 
doctor  as  he  passed  quickly  on  from  tent  to  tent.  Then 


THE  TRELOARS  323 

he  looked  up  at  the  bright  blue  sky  over  which  white 
masses  of  clouds  were  seething  up  from  the  horizon  and 
breaking  into  shreds  and  into  rounded  masses  and  drift- 
ing away,  and  his  thoughts  drifted  with  them  far  beyond 
the  horizon  and  the  ocean  barrier,  to  the  land  that  had 
given  him  birth.  His  thoughts  had  an  unwonted  seri- 
ousness that  produced  in  him  the  sense  of  a  fullness  of 
life  which  he  had  not  known  there.  The  son  of  an 
American  millionaire,  he  had  never  had  a  wish  long  un- 
gratified.  He  was  a  Harvard  graduate,  not  because  he 
had  any  particular  inclination  for  learning,  but  because 
it  is  the  proper  thing  for  a  rich  man's  son  to  be  a  univer- 
sity graduate.  He  left  Cambridge  with  a  magnificent  rec- 
ord in  athletics  and  a  sturdy  contempt  for  a  college  pro- 
fessor which  might  have  been  a  reflection  on  his  college 
and  his  professors,  if  the  standard  by  which  he  measured 
them  had  not  been  more  appropriate  for  a  prize-fighter 
than  for  a  professor.  To  Dan  Holman,  a  man  was  a  man 
by  virtue  of  his  muscle  and  his  grit,  by  which  he  always 
found  himself  right  side  up  no  matter  what  buffets  for- 
tune might  give  him.  It  is  true  that  fortune  had  not 
buffeted  him  in  the  least,  but  he  felt  that  he  had  that 
within  him  which  could  have  stood  the  test.  He  was 
only  six  or  seven  years  Dick's  senior,  but  he  was  twice  his 
age  in  what  is  called  knowledge  of  the  world,  and  very 
much  his  junior  in  the  rare  knowledge  that  is  the  fruit  of 
reflection. 

He  had  traveled  all  over  the  world,  looked  vice  and 
misery  frankly  in  the  face,  and  having  exhausted  his 
curiosity,  passed  on  to  some  new  experience  under  the  im- 
pression that  life  means  fullness  and  variety  of  sensa- 
tion, until  at  last  he  found  himself  bankrupt  in  sensation : 
nothing  could  greatly  shock,  surprise  or  please  him  any 
more,  and  he  might  have  truly  exclaimed  with  Hamlet: 
"  Man  delights  not  me,  no,  nor  woman  neither."  He 
was  a  great  favorite  with  women,  but  too  thoroughly 
virile  to  be  their  slave  or  to  fall  into  a  whining,  sickly 
eroticism.  When  the  war  broke  out  in  Europe,  he  hailed 


324  THE  TRELOARS 

it  as  a  godsend,  a  relief  from  boredom,  and  hurried  to 
France  to  enlist  in  the  aviation  service.  Chance  threw 
him  in  the  way  of  Dick  Treloar,  who  rendered  him  an 
important  service  by  interpreting  his  bad  French  at  a 
critical  moment  and  the  two  young  men  became  fast 
friends.  When  Dick  entered  the  ambulance  service,  Dan 
entered  it  also,  in  order  not  to  be  separated  from  him. 
A  warm,  pure,  spontaneous  attraction  drew  him  and  held 
him  to  Dick,  awakening  in  him  a  multitude  of  delightful 
emotions.  Before  his  friendship  with  Dick,  he  had 
though  it  a  proof  of  effeminacy  to  feel  deeply  about  any- 
thing. He  had  no  real  conception  of  suffering,  for  he 
had  never  suffered.  He  had  not  even  known  what  it  was 
to  be  really  thirsty  or  hungry,  and  his  splendid  physique 
•had  spared  him  the  knowledge  of  physical  pain.  His 
wealth  and  health  had,  to  a  certain  extent,  exempted  him 
from  many  of  the  common  experiences  of  his  fellow  men 
and  he  was  little  more  than  a  magnificent  animal,  await- 
ing its  soul  birth ;  but  the  soul  was  born  now  and  enter- 
ing into  its  inheritance  of  human  sympathy  and  human 
thought.  Dick  and  the  war  were  his  mentors.  In 
short,  in  the  vigorous  New  Testament  phrasd,  he  had 
come  to  himself. 

Yes,  Dan  had  learned  his  lesson;  he  had  walked  along 
the  heights  of  life  and  bowed  his  head  in  the  depths.  He 
had  watched  unweariedly  by  Dick's  bedside  since  he 
picked  him  up  unconscious  from  the  frozen  ground  in 
the  stormy,  wintry  night  of  March.  His  lips  unused  to 
prayer  had  offered  up  a  trembling  petition  to  the  Great 
Unknown  that  Dick's  life  might  be  spared.  This  morn- 
ing as  he  paced  before  the  tent  in  the  sweet  sunlight, 
he  renewed  the  petition,  and  felt  assured  that  it  had  been 
heard. 

After  smoking  a  cigar,  he  threw  away  the  stub  and 
tiptoed  into  the  tent,  again.  Dick  was  still  sleeping,  but 
as  Dan  leaned  over  him,  Dick  moved  his  head  uneasily 
several  times,  then  slowly  opened  his  eyes.  He  stared 
at  Dan  in  astonishment,  lifted  his  head,  and  looked  about 
him  in  bewilderment ;  then  said  feebly : 


THE  TRELOARS  325 

"Have  I  been  sick?" 

Trying  to  lift  himself  and  falling  back  exhausted,  he 
answered  his  own  question  with  the  words: 

"  I  guess  I  have,  for  I  haven't  any  strength.  How  long 
have  I  been  lying  here  ?  " 

"  Nearly  a  month,  old  boy.  You  went  down  when 
the  snow  was  on  the  ground.  Do  you  remember  ?  " 

Dick  put  his  hand  to  his  forehead  and  knitted  his  brow, 
then  he  drew  his  hand  down  over  his  eyes,  and  his  lips 
quivered  as  he  answered:, 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  I  buried  him ;  but  I  left  the  pick 
on  the  grave  to  mark  it." 

"  I  found  it,  Dick,  there's  a  white,  wooden  cross  there 
now,  with  the  date  on  it,  and  the  words,  A  German 
Officer.  But  we  won't  think  about  that  any  more. 
There's  a  whole  drawer  full  of  letters  here  for  you." 

Dan  pulled  out  the  drawer  of  the  little  table  by  the 
bedside,  then  he  hastily  shut  it  again,  adding: 

"  But  you're  not  to  have  a  look  at  them  yet  till  you're 
a  bit  stronger.  The  doctor  says  you're  to  have  some- 
thing light  and  nourishing.  Do  you  feel  hungry?" 

"  Hungry  ?  Empty  as  a  collapsed  balloon.  Are  you 
sure  he  said  light,  Dan  ?  " 

Dan  scratched  his  head  and  raised  his  eyebrows. 

"Yes.  I'm  awfully  sorry,  but  he  said  light,  and  I 
guess  we'd  better  stick  to  that,  at  first.  I'll  get  you  some- 
thing right  away.  We  are  not  far  from  the  big  hospital. 
I'll  be  back  in  a  jiffy." 

He  stopped  at  the  open  door  to  add  warningly: 

"  Now,  don't  you  be  trying  anything  rash,  till  I  come 
back.  Do  you  hear  ?  You  won't  get  at  the  letters  ?  " 

Dick  smiled  faintly  again,  answered  no,  and  closed  his 
eyes.  He  had  caught  sight  of  the  green  fields  outside, 
and  it  caused  a  sudden  sensation  of  nausea.  Slowly,  the 
past  was  coming  back  to  him,  recreating  his  identity  out 
of  the  confusion  of  delirium,  which  had  temporarily  de- 
stroyed it.  He  felt  literally  as  if  he  had  died,  and  had 
come  to  life  again.  For  a  time  he  pondered  over  this 


326  THE  TRELOARS 

strange  fact  —  then  he  made  an  effort  to  rise  into  a  sit- 
ting posture,  but  he  fell  back  exhausted,  just  as  Dan 
entered  the  tent  with  a  tray  covered  by  a  white  cloth. 

"  None  of  that,  old  man,"  Dan  called  out  cheerily. 
"  What  did  you  promise  me  when  I  left  ?  That  you 
wouldn't  be  trying  anything  rash,  wasn't  it?  Fine  at 
keeping  a  promise,  aren't  you  ?  " 

Dick's  voice  had  a  weary  drawl  in  it,  as  he  replied : 

"  I  was  just  trying  to  see  if  I  could  sit  up,  but  I  don't 
think  I  can  yet." 

"  No,  of  course  you  can't.  Who  expects  you  to?  Just 
wait  till  you  get  outside  of  some  of  this  good  chicken 
broth,  and  then  we'll  see  what  you  can  do.  Does  it 
smell  good  ?  " 

Dan  put  the  cloth  on  the  table  and  removed  the  cover 
from  the  steaming  bowl. 

"  You  bet  it  does !  I  think  I  could  eat  it  bowl  and 
all." 

"  Just  wait  till  I  prop  you  up  a  bit,  and  put  this  napkin 
under  your  chin.  There  you  are,  fine  as  a  feather ! 
Your  hand's  a  bit  trembling,  isn't  it  ?  Look  here,  let  me 
feed  you;  we  don't  want  to  lose  any  of  this  good  broth. 
There!  that's  better!  Does  it  hit  the  right  spot?" 

Dick  nodded  his  head  affirmatively  and  opened  his 
mouth  for  a  fresh  spoonful  of  the  savory  broth,  and  hav- 
ing finished  it,  he  asked: 

"Dan,  did  you  ever  take  care  of  the  sick,  before?" 

"  Never!    This  is  my  'prentice  job." 

"  You're  a  master  hand  at  it,  anyway,  Dan.  I  can't  be- 
gin to  tell  you  how  grateful " 

"  Then  don't  you  try  it,"  interrupted  Dan  imperatively. 
"  Say,  you  don't  know  what  a  peach  of  a  beard  you've 
raised.  Your  mother  wouldn't  know  you." 

"  I  haven't  any  mother,  Dan,  but  I've  a  sister  who  has 
been  mother  to  me  since  I  was  a  child.  By  the  way, 
there  must  be  some  letters  there  from  her.  Will  you 
let  me  have  a  look  at  them  now  ?  " 

Dan's  heart  beat  faster,  and  he  mentally  called  himself 


THE  TRELOARS  327 

a  chump  for  suggesting  the  letters.  He  feared  that  read- 
ing them  might  excite  Dick,  and  bring  on  his  fever  again, 
so  he  said,  resolutely : 

"  Now,  look  here,  Dick,  I'll  let  you  look  at  the  en- 
velopes, but  I  don't  want  you  to  get  excited  to-day. 
You're  on  the  up-grade  now,  and  we  don't  want  any  slip- 
ping backwards.  Do  you  understand  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  you  don't  understand  what  a  lot  of  good 
a  kind,  cheery  word  from  home  would  do  me.  It  would 
excite  me  unfavorably  to  lie  here  and  think  about  the 
letters  and  wonder  what  is  in  them." 

He  put  out  his  thin,  white  hand,  and  Dan's  big  brown 
one  closed  over  it  heartily. 

"  I  can't  read  the  letters,  myself,  Dan,"  he  went  on, 
"  my  eyes  are  tired.  I'm  weak,  that's  all.  Now  if  you'd 
just  read  me  a  few  letters  from  home  while  I  listen  with 
my  eyes  shut,  it  will  do  me  more  good  than  medicine." 

"  All  right,  old  man,  we'll  try  it,"  said  Dan,  seating 
himself  at  the  table  and  opening  the  drawer,  determined 
to  read  slowly,  and  glance  on  ahead.  If  there  were  any- 
thing sad  or  depressing  in  the  letter,  he  would  skip  these 
lines  or  trust  to  his  power  of  cheerful  improvisation. 
The  first  letter  he  pulled  out  was  a  bulging  one  with 
double  postage  on  it,  and  feeling  it  carefully,  he  said: 

"  I  think  this  one  has  kodak  pictures  In  it." 

Sure  enough,  it  had.  It  was  one  of  Dolly's  letters, 
containing  three  kodak  pictures  of  a  beautiful,  laughing 
child  in  various  positions.  In  one  of  them,  she  herself 
was  standing  near  a  clump  of  bushes,  and  the  child  was 
playing  near  her. 

"  I  don't  think  this  will  hurt  your  eyes,  Dick." 

Dan  handed  the  pictures  to  him  and  he  looked  at  them 
eagerly,  pressing  to  his  lips  the  one  containing  Dolly's 
picture. 

"  That's  my  boy,  Dan." 

"  Your  boy  ?    Why  I  didn't  know  you  were  married." 

Dan  felt  a  sudden,  nasty  twinge  of  jealousy.  Why  had 
not  Dick  told  him  that  he  was  married? 


328  THE  TRELOARS 

"  And  that's  your  wife,"  he  continued.  "  She's  a  beau- 
tiful woman." 

"  No,  that's  not  my  wife,  Dan.  My  wife  is  dead. 
That's  a  young  girl  I  have  known  all  my  life,  and  she  is 
just  as  good  as  she  is  beautiful.  She's  bringing  up  my 
boy." 

Dan  suppressed  a  sigh,  and  began  reading  Dolly's  let- 
ter. There  was  nothing  in  it  to  be  left  out.  It  was 
as  bright  and  cheering  as  a  sunny  day  in  spring,  full  of 
home  atmosphere,  household  chatter,  quaint  turns  of  ex- 
pression, and  pretty  quotations  from  the  child ;  but  when 
he  had  finished  reading,  Dan  noticed  a  bright  flush  on 
Dick's  face,  and  said  suspiciously,  as  he  put  his  cool  hand 
on  Dick's  forehead: 

"  Now,  if  this  means  more  fever,  we  come  to  a  dead 
stop." 

Dick  laughed  and  looked  at  him  mischievously. 

"  Dan,  did  you  ever  surreptitiously  open  the  oven- 
door,  when  the  Christmas  baking  was  going  on,  and  get 
the  warm  sweet  heat  of  the  cakes  and  cookies  full  in 
your  face?  It  wasn't  a  fever  you  had  when  you  shut 
the  door  again.  You  were  just  warmed  and  delighted." 

"  Hum !  Do  you  think  you  can  stand  some  more 
sweetening  and  warming?  " 

"  Yes,  go  on." 

"  Well,  here's  a  letter  that  is  not  from  Dolly.  Dolly's 
handwriting  has  a  little  kick  and  flutter  in  it,  entirely 
wanting  in  this  young  lady's,  for  it  is  a  young  lady  who  is 
writing,  and  she  minds  her  p's  and  q's,  and  puts  the  dots 
on  her  i's  where  they  ought  to  be,  instead  of  sowing  them 
rather  wildly,  anywhere  above  the  word,  as  Dolly  does. 
Do  you  know  who  it  is  ?  " 

"  Yes,  that's  my  sister,  Margaret." 

"  I  think  this  letter  has  a  picture  in  it,  too.  Yes,  here 
it  is.  Why,  Dick,  she  looks  just  like  you !  That's  your 
sister." 

"  Yes,  that's  my  sister,  God  bless  her !  " 

The  tears  started  to  his  eyes,  and  he  fervently  kissed 


THE  TRELOARS  329 

the  picture;  after  looking  at  it  long  and  lovingly,  he 
handed  it  back  to  Dan,  saying: 

"  You'll  have  to  answer  all  these  letters  for  me,  Dan, 
and  when  you  write,  don't  tell  Margaret  just  how  sick 
I've  been." 

"  No.  I'm  going  to  tell  her  that  we're  coming  home ; 
for  you  know,  you're  ordered  home  to  get  well,  Dick, 
just  as  soon  as  you're  able  to  travel.  The  doctor  told 
me  that  you  needed  to  get  out  of  this  hell,  for  a  while ;  and 
I'm  going  with  you.  I  need  a  furlough,  too.  I've  had 
my  bellyful  of  it,  and  I  want  a  glimpse  of  paradise,  for  a 
change." 

He  paused,  looked  steadily  at  Margaret's  picture  for 
a  minute  or  two.  "  Yes,  she's  very  much  like  you.  Now 
let's  see  what  she  says." 

It  was  a  letter  that  reflected  the  sweetness  of  the  writer 
and  her  loving  solicitude  for  her  brother.  She  had  had 
a  singular  dream,  one  night,  that  had  made  a  profound 
impression  upon  her.  She  saw  Dick  wandering  on  a 
dark  and  storm-swept  field;  she  saw  him  fall,  and  par- 
alyzed with  terror,  she  stood  helpless  at  some  distance, 
when  suddenly  a  light  flashed  across  the  field,  and  a  tall 
dark  man,  bent  over  him,  took  him  in  his  arms  and 
vanished  in  the  darkness.  It  was  all  so  wonderfully  real, 
so  vivid,  that  she  awoke  with  a  firm  conviction  that  some- 
thing of  the  sort  had  really  taken  place,  and  that  he  had 
been  saved  from  death.  She  had  spoken  of  it  to  no  one, 
not  even  to  Dolly,  for  she  disliked  to  alarm  any  one 
unnecessarily,  or  seem  to  give  undue  importance  to  what 
might  be  only  a  meaningless  vision,  the  result  of  her 
fears,  and  her  constant  thought  of  him.  Would  he  an- 
swer at  once  and  tell  her  the  truth  ?  And  if  the  tall  dark 
man  really  existed  instead  of  being  a  creature  of  her 
fancy,  would  he  tell  him  that  no  words  could  express  her 
gratitude  for  any  kindness  rendered  to  her  beloved 
brother?  She  concluded  her  letter  by  saying  that  she 
had  been  impressed  also,  by  the  fourth  chapter  of  second 
Esdras  which  seemed  to  her  to  contain  an  allegory  most 


330  THE  TRELOARS 

applicable  to  the  present  war  situation,  as  well  as  a  re- 
proof to  those  who  sought  to  penetrate  God's  judgments 
and  to  seek  to  unravel  mysteries  far  beyond  their  ken. 
She  would  not  fill  her  letter  with  quotations  from  it,  but 
would  ask  him  to  read  it  at  his  earliest  convenience  and 
tell  her  what  he  thought  of  it. 

"  Well,  what  do  you  think  of  that  ?  "  asked  Dan,  look- 
ing at  Dick  with  wide  staring  eyes  which  narrowed  sud- 
denly, when  a  smile  broke  over  his  face. 

"  That  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Ho- 
ratio, than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy.  I  don't 
know  what  to  make  of  it.  Isn't  it  strange  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  you  don't  know  it  all,  yet,  Dick.  The  tall 
dark  man  was  reading  this  very  morning,  while  you 
slept,  that  very  same  chapter  in  Esdras,  and  thinking 
that  very  same  thing.  Dick,  there's  something  in  this. 
Here's  the  book." 

He  stooped,  and  from  a  lower  shelf  of  the  table  lifted 
a  Bible. 

"That  little  French  chaplain  brought  it  in  the  other 
day  and  left  it  with  me.  He  said  it  was  the  only  English 
Bible  he  had,  and  that  he'd  come  round  again  in  a  few 
days  and  get  it.  See  here,  here's  the  place  she  means. 
The  fellow  that's  talking  has  been  growling  about  not 
understanding  how  the  Lord  runs  things,  and  this  angel, 
Ariel,  answers  him.  Now  listen." 

"  Then  said  I  unto  hint,  It  were  better  that  we  were 
not  at  all  than  that  we  should  live  still  in  wickedness, 
and  to  suffer  and  not  to  know  wherefore. 

"  He  answered  me,  and  said,  I  went  into  a  forest  into  a 
plain,  and  the  trees  took  counsel, 

"  And  said,  Come  let  us  go  and  make  war  against  the 
sea,  that  it  may  depart  away  before  us,  and  that  we  may 
make  us  more  woods." 

"  That's  the  Germans,"  interpolated  Dan,  "  now  here 
come  the  Allies." 

"  'The  Hoods  of  the  sea  also  in  like  manner  took  coun- 
sel and  said,  Come  let  us  go  up  and  subdue  the  woods  of 


THE  TRELOARS  331 

the  plain,  that  there  also  we  may  make  us  another  country. 

"  The  thought  of  the  wood  was  in  vain,  for  the  fire 
came  and  consumed  it. 

"  The  thought  of  the  floods  of  the  sea  came  likewise  to 
nought,  for  the  sand  stood  up  and  stopped  them. 

"If  thou  wert  judge  now  betwixt  these  tzvo,  whom 
would' st  thou  begin  to  justify  ?  or  whom  would' st  thou 
condemn? 

"I  answered  and  said,  Verily  it  is  a  foolish  thought 
that  they  both  have  devised,  for  the  ground  is  given  unto 
the  wood,  and  the  sea  also  hath  his  place  to  bear  his 
floods. 

"  Then  answered  he  me  and  said,  Thou  hast  given 
a  right  judgment;  but  why  judgest  thou  not  thyself 
also? 

"For  like  as  the  ground  is  given  unto  the  wood,  and 
the  sea  to  his  Hoods;  even  so  they  that  dwell  upon  the 
earth  may  understand  nothing  but  that  which  is  upon 
the  earth;  and  he  that  dwelleth  above  the  heavens  may 
only  understand  the  things  that  are  above  the  height  of 
the  heavens. 

"  And  we  pass  away  out  of  the  world  as  grasshoppers, 
and  our  life  is  astonishment  and  fear,  and  we  are  not 
worthy  to  obtain  mercy. 

.  .  .  "  The  evil  is  sown,  but  the  destruction  thereof  is 
not  yet  come. 

"If  therefore  that  which  is  sown  be  not  turned  up- 
side down,  and  if  the  place  where  the  evil  is  sown  pass 
not  away,  then  cannot  it  come  that  is  sown  with  good." 

"  Dick,"  said  Dan,  closing  his  Bible  and  laying  it  back 
on  the  shelf,  "  this  upside  down  business  that  is  going 
on  over  here,  may  just  be  the  clearing  of  the  ground  for 
the  sowing  of  the  good.  I  think  your  sister  is  right.  I 
am  going  to  tell  her  so,  and  I  am  going  to  tell  her  the 
truth  about  her  wonderful  vision,  and  that  the  dark-faced 
man  is  no  dream,  but  very  much  alive,  and  is  going  out 


332  THE  TRELOARS 

to  California  with  her  brother  to  see  her.  Now,  I  am 
not  going  to  read  you  another  letter,  to-day,  Dick.  These 
need  answering,  and  you  need  quieting  down.  Is  there 
anything  you  want  before  I  leave,  a  glass  of  fresh  water, 
or  another  bowl  of  soup  ?  " 

"  No,  thank  you,  Dan.  I'm  all  right ;  but  don't  be  hard 
on  me,  if  you  find  I  haven't  slept  when  you  come 
back." 

Dan  smiled,  patted  him  affectionately  on  the  shoulder, 
and  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

IT  would  be  difficult  to  describe  the  rapture  of  the 
home-coming,  on  the  first  of  May,  to  these  two  young 
men  fresh  from  the  reeking  fields  of  war  and  the  peril- 
ous ocean  voyage.  There  were  many  strange  elements 
commingled  in  that  rapture,  so  many  hopes  and  fears,  so 
much  uncertainty,  and  so  much  of  pure  physical  joy  in 
breathing  the  untainted  air,  and  sympathetic  joy  in  see- 
ing happy  human  faces,  and  freedom  from  want.  Both 
Dick  and  Dan  wished  to  forget  what  they  had  seen  and 
heard,  but  the  memory  persisted  in  a  sentiment  of  genu- 
ine amazement  at  what  seemed  to  them  the  apathy  of  their 
fellow-countrymen  in  regard  to  the  awful  tragedy  going 
on  in  Europe.  It  seemed  to  them  that  some  taint  of  the 
pestilence  there,  some  resentful  memory  of  their  own 
losses  in  the  neutral  seas,  would  at  least  make  itself  felt 
in  a  feverish  restlessness  and  anxiety,  and  an  unequi- 
vocal outspoken  sympathy  for  those  who  were  fighting 
the  battle  of  civilization  against  a  relapse  into  barbarism. 
But  there  was  nothing  of  the  kind  apparent  on  the  sur- 
face, at  any  rate.  In  reply  to  Dan's  remark  about  the 
heartlessness  of  his  countrymen  in  this  respect,  Dick 
said: 

"  It  isn't  that  they  are  hard-hearted.  There  isn't  a 
kinder-hearted  nation  in  the  world  than  the  American. 


THE  TRELOARS  333 

The  whole  trouble  is  that  the  Americans  are  deficient  in 
imagination.  What  they  can't  see  and  touch  doesn't  ex- 
ist for  them.  If  they  had  seen  what  we  have  seen,  the 
whole  nation  would  rise  like  one  man  and  protest  not 
only  in  words,  but  in  arms." 

"  Well,  they've  as  good  as  seen  the  torpedoing  of  the 
Lusitania." 

"  I  know  it,  but  they  refused  to  attribute  to  the  whole 
nation  what  seemed  to  them  the  barbarity  of  an  excep- 
tional few.  Remember  that  America  has  had  a  long  and 
sincere  admiration  for  Germany,  and  that  a  large  num- 
ber of  her  best  citizens  are  of  German  descent;  much 
of  the  tendency  of  her  thought  has  been  determined  by 
German  philosophers  and  pedagogues.  She  has  modeled 
her  school  system  after  theirs.  Do  you  think  it  is  easy 
to  efface  that  attractive  picture,  and  substitute  for  the 
airy  kingdom  of  philosophy,  a  Zeppelin  raid;  and,  for 
the  tranquil  ideal  German  with  his  long  pipe  and  his 
mug  of  beer,  the  new  German  berserker  —  the  incarnate 
bogyman  of  our  terrified  infancy?  Do  you  think  it  is 
easy  for  practical  horse-sense  people  like  the  Americans 
to  imagine  so  intelligent  a  nation  as  Germany,  in  a  child- 
ish fit  of  the  sulks,  bent  upon  justifying  its  attitude,  and 
kicking  at  everything  and  everybody  in  its  way,  and 
crying  out  that  it  hasn't  a  friend  in  the  world?  Well 
we've  seen  it,  Dan ;  we  know  it,  and  we  believe  the  child 
needs  a  good  thrashing  to  relieve  its  cerebral  blood-pres- 
sure and  bring  it  to  its  senses." 

"  It's  getting  it ;  but  let's  forget  it,  if  we  can.  Now, 
you  are  going  out  home  with  me,  you  know,  Dick.  We 
don't  live  very  far  out  of  New  York.  Father  hasn't  got 
my  message,  or  he'd  be  here  to  meet  us.  I'll  telephone 
him  that  We're  coming  right  out  in  a  taxi,  and  you  can 
send  a  telegram  to  Margaret  that  you've  arrived  safely, 
and  that  in  a  few  days,  when  you've  rested  a  bit,  you'll 
be  starting  home  and  taking  me  with  you.  That's  all 
right,  isn't  it?" 

"  Certainly,"  answered  Dick,  though  in  his  heart,  he 


334  THE  TRELOARS 

would  have  much  preferred  starting  home  at  once.  As 
soon  as  the  messages  were  sent,  and  a  hearty  lunch  had 
been  eaten,  the  two  young  men  started  in  a  taxicab  for 
the  Holmar.  residence,  and  were  soon  rolling  rapidly  out 
of  New  York  into  the  broad,  shaded  avenues  which 
stretch  along  the  eastern  banks  of  the  Hudson.  Dick, 
who  had  never  been  in  this  part  of  the  country  before, 
was  delighted  with  its  beauty  and  surprised  to  find  so 
much  diversity  and  natural  loveliness  preserved  so  near 
the  great  metropolis.  Commenting  upon  the  many  beau- 
tiful country  seats,  Dan  said : 

"  That's  one  of  the  uses  of  wealth,  don't  you  think  so, 
Dick,  to  preserve  as  much  beauty  as  possible?  It  is  true 
that  these  big  estates  cover  a  great  deal  of  ground ;  but 
then,  what  a  rest  to  the  eye  it  is  to  see  green  fields  and 
woods  instead  of  brick  yards,  tanneries,  saw-mills,  or 
row  after  row  of  huddled  houses.  Many  a  poor  devil 
gets  his  joy  out  of  them  without  having  the  care  and 
cost  of  keeping  them  up.  My  father's  estate  lies  on  the 
other  side  of  the  river,  beyond  the  palisades.  We  shall 
cross  on  the  ferry,  presently.  I  don't  exactly  know  just 
how  many  acres  of  woodland  father  has,  but  he  has 
only  cleared  up  a  bit  around  the  house ;  a  few  rods  from 
the  door,  you  can  plunge  into  the  primeval  forest,  and 
lose  yourself  in  ravines,  breast  high  with  ferns  and 
brakes.  You'll  like  it,  I  think." 

Dick  liked  it  very  much,  and  he  liked  Dan's  family 
from  the  very  first.  He  had  a  good  deal  of  that  sensi- 
tive reserve  of  thoughtful  natures  which  makes  it  rather 
painful  to  them  to  meet  strangers  at  first;  but  the  at- 
mosphere of  this  house,  like  that  of  the  forest  which 
surrounded  it,  was  good  for  the  lungs.  Dick  felt  at 
home  immediately.  He  found  here,  the  same  quiet  sim- 
plicity, the  same  broad  freedom  without  vulgarity,  the 
same  serious  interest  in  things  of  moment,  to  which  he 
had  been  accustomed  from  his  childhood.  Dan's  father 
was  a  large,  keen-eyed  man  who  reminded  Dick  not  a 
little  of  Dr.  Parker,  except  that  he  had  a  heavy  shock  of 


THE  TRELOARS  335 

iron-gray  hair  with  a  stubborn  inclination  to  curl  that  de- 
fied any  brush  or  comb  to  give  it  an  appearance  of 
order.  Mrs.  Holman  was  a  placid,  portly  woman  with 
a  gentle  voice  and  winning  manner;  and  it  required  no 
penetration  to  discover  that  it  had  not  been  difficult  for 
her  to  resist  the  allurements  of  city  life,  and  to  prefer 
the  seclusion  of  these  wooded  heights  to  any  elegance 
or  advantage  which  the  city  might  offer  her.  Yet  se- 
clusion is  hardly  the  right  word  to  use  of  a  household 
that  was  rarely  free  from  visitors;  but  they  came  and 
went  with  so  little  excitement  or  ceremony,  that  they 
seemed  a  natural  part  of  the  family  life,  rather  than  an 
intrusion  upon  it. 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  should  ever  want  to  leave 
home,  Dan,"  said  Dick,  as  the  two  young  men  stood  on 
a  rocky  height,  at  the  rear  of  the  house,  overlooking  a 
broad  fertile  valley,  extending  to  a  range  of  hills  on  the 
western  horizon  line. 

"  O,  don't  you  ?  "  replied  Dan,  removing  his  cigar  from 
his  mouth  and  knocking  the  ashes  from  it  with  his  little 
finger.  "  Have  you  forgotten  Rasselas  and  the  Happy 
V alley  ?  I  haven't,  for  I  had  to  cram  on  it  once  for  a 
college  exam.  That  is  how  I  happen  to  remember  that 
Rasselas  was  miserable  because  every  want  and  desire 
was  fulfilled,  and  he  had  nothing  left  to  wish  for: 
'  Give  me  something  to  desire,'  he  said  to  the  old  man 
to  whom  he  was  complaining  of  the  wretched  monotony 
of  his  happiness.  Well,  it  was  something  like  that  with 
me.  I  am  the  youngest  son;  and  father  and  the  other 
boys  represent  Jhe  intellectual  and  business  faculty  of 
the  family.  I  didn't  inherit  any  activity  in  that  line. 
That's  where  I've  been  a  disappointment  to  him. 
Mother  came  in  before  the  new  woman  grew  to  be  so 
common.  She  had  an  idea  that  home-making  ought 
to  be  a  big  enough  occupation  to  give  plenty  of  in- 
tellectual activity  to  a  woman;  we  always  had  a  lot  of 
visitors  about  the  house,  brainy  and  otherwise,  and 
had  plenty  of  good  talk;  and  I  think  mother  developed 


336  THE  TRELOARS 

into  rather  an  unusual  woman.  Did  you  notice  the 
lovely  way  she  received  me,  eyes  moist,  cheeks  flushed, 
a  warm  embrace,  but  no  hysterics,  and  no  reproaches 
when  I  told  her  I  was  going  off  with  you?  She  was 
always  like  that.  She  never  thought  I  was  making 
straight  for  the  devil,  and  she  must  flag  the  train 
every  time  I  went  off  without  telling  her  about  it.  I 
know,  now,  that  I  haven't  always  been  exactly  on  the 
square  with  mother;  but  I'm  going  to  justify  her  faith 
in  me,  by  coming  out  all  right,  you  see  if  I  don't.  I 
wonder  if  there  are  any  more  of  that  sort  left  over 
among  the  young  women.  Say  —  do  you  think  Mar- 
garet would  like  this  place  ?  " 

The  question  came  so  abruptly,  that  Dick  smiled  in- 
voluntarily, as  he  answered : 

"  I  am  sure  she  would.  Margaret  and  I  are  very  much 
alike  in  our  tastes;  and  as  for  me,  I  think  this  is 
glorious ! " 

"  It  is  pretty,  isn't  it  ?  And  somehow  it  looks  unusu- 
ally so  to  me,  this  spring.  I  don't  remember  ever  no- 
ticing, before,  that  pink  flush  in  the  leaves,  and  that 
delicate  yellowish,  green  and  brown  tasseling  among  them. 
We  have  gorgeous  autumn  reds  and  yellows,  you  know. 
You  ought  to  see  us  in  October.  But  this  isn't  bad  at 
all.  Now  let's  have  a  look  at  the  kennels.  Father  is  in 
a  sad  way  about  the  names  of  his  hounds.  He  was  a 
great  admirer  of  Wagner,  before  the  war,  and  named  his 
hounds  after  the  operatic  heroes  and  heroines;  Tann- 
hauser,  Siegfried,  Lohengrin,  Tristan,  Isolde,  etc.;  but 
since  his  sympathies  are  with  the  Allies,  he  thinks  he 
ought  to  strip  them  of  the  Teutonic  glory  of  their  names. 
Mother  is  trying  to  persuade  him  that  art  has  no  na- 
tionality, but  he  is  not  entirely  convinced  yet.  Hear  'em 
yelp?  By  George!  that  makes  a  boy  of  me  again.  We 
used  to  keep  a  lot  of  riding  horses,  but  the  automobiles 
have  put  an  end  to  that.  Hello !  old  fellow,  hello !  Do 
you  know  me  ?  " 

Did  they  know  him!     Such  a  deep-mouthed  chorus  in 


THE  TRELOARS    '  337 

answer;  such  scrambling  one  over  the  other,  and  such 
leaping  to  get  at  him,  against  the  wire-netting  that 
hemmed  them  in !  He  let  two  of  them  out,  and  they 
bounded  about  him  in  frantic  joy,  and  leaped  upon  him, 
and  licked  his  face  and  hands,  till  he  was  forced  to  be 
sharp  with  them  to  beat  them  off;  then  they  followed 
him  docilely,  or  ran  ahead  of  him  in  the  woodland  paths, 
turning  to  see  if  he  were  coming,  as  he  and  Dick  con- 
tinued their  walk.  The  air  was  full  of  spring  odors 
and  spring  sounds.  Among  the  last  year's  withered 
leaves  that  strewed  the  ground,  blue  violets  were  show- 
ing; and  the  delicate  spring-beauty  trailed  its  slender 
long-leaved  stems  with  their  clusters  of  small,  white,  pink- 
striped  blossoms.  On  the  moist  slopes  of  deep  ravines, 
clumps  of  blood-root  lifted  their  snowy  flowers  above 
the  pale  green  clasping  leaves,  not  yet  unfolded. 
Through  the  tall  forest-trees  just  coming  into  leaf,  the 
sunlight  filtered,  and  fell  in  mottled  patches  on  the  ground. 
This  beauty,  this  spring  freshness,  this  will  to  live  that 
flushed  the  tender  leaves  and  pendent  tassels  of  the  trees, 
and  spoke  from  the  dark  clod  in  delicate  bloom  and 
opening  leaf,  thrilled  Dick  again  with  that  sense  of 
mystery  and  wonder  of  life  which  he  had  often  felt 
before  —  but  with  a  new  intensity,  now,  and  an  ardent 
wish  for  power  to  voice  the  feeling  fitly  to  a  world  that 
has  forgotten  the  beauty  and  value  of  life  in  all  its 
forms,  high  or  low,  transient  or  permanent,  and  con- 
founded its  beauty  and  value  with  that  of  its  own  life- 
less creations.  Its  hoarse  and  fevered  cry  is  not  for 
more  life,  deeper  and  purer  life,  but  for  more  things 
to  crush  out  the  sense  of  life;  more  speed  that  we  may 
scurry  over  the  land,  or  in  the  air,  or  under  the  water, 
to  say  that  we  have  sped  faster  than  any  one  ever  sped 
before;  more  spectacles,  showy  and  adventurous,  that 
we  may  forget  our  own  life  in  the  show  of  other  lives ; 
more  riches,  that  we  may  batten  all  the  chinks  by  which 
fresh  life  can  enter  our  dying  souls ;  more  dancing  here, 
and  there,  and  everywhere,  till  all  serious  human  action 


338  THE  TRELOARS 

degenerates  into  an  idiotic  tic:  more  social  functions, 
and  herding  and  crowding  together  till  all  clean-cut, 
vigorous  individuality  is  lost  in  a  composite  smear.  Life ! 
This  is  not  life !  It  is  a  convulsion ;  it  is  the  very  waste 
and  absence  of  that  priceless  gift  of  consciousness  and 
thought  which  lifts  us  for  a  moment  above  the  clod. 

"  Dan ! "  exclaimed  Dick  after  a  pause  in  their  con- 
versation, and  his  voice  had  a  suspicious  huskiness  in 
it,  "  I  am  not  going  back  to  France,  I've  got  something 
here  to  do." 

"  Have  you  ?  That's  good.  I  don't  know  whether  I 
shall  go  back  or  not.  Very  likely  I  shall,  for  I'd  like 
to  see  the  thing  through.  But  if  I  do,  I'm  going  into  the 
aviation  service.  I'll  have  a  try-out  here,  though,  be- 
fore I  go  over  again.  Will  you  go  back  into  journalism, 
Dick?" 

"  No,  I  am  through  with  that.  I  mean  to  be  my 
own  master,  and  write  to  nobody's  dictation  but  my 
own.  I  believe  I've  got  something  to  say  worth  while. 
Dan,  did  you  ever  feel  as  if  you  weren't  living,  but  just 
being  shoved  ?  " 

"  Well,  yes ;  but  I  think  shoved  is  a  mild  term  for  it. 
I've  been  slung,  tossed,  hustled  about  to  a  pretty  lively 
tune  the  last  two  years ;  but  it's  been  good  for  me.  I've 
had  a  little  sense  knocked  into  me." 

"  I've  had  the  same  experience,  Dan,  but  I  don't  want 
to  be  shoved  any  more.  I  want  to  live.  I  want  to  think. 
I  want  to  get  quiet  possession  of  myself,  and  do  the 
thing  that  I  can  do  best.  Your  forest  is  an  inspiration 
to  me  this  morning.  I  feel  the  sap  rising  in  me,  too, 
getting  ready  to  burst  into  blossom  and  leaf.  We  must 
start  home  to-morrow,  Dan.  Play-time  is  up.  I  must 
go  to  work." 

He  turned  his  glowing  face  towards  his  companion,  and 
put  his  hand  on  his  shoulder.  All  the  doubt  and  confu- 
sion of  thought  and  feeling  seemed  to  clear  away.  His 
path  lay  straight  before  him,  with  no  enticing  little  by- 
paths of  cowardly  compromise  and  weak  intolerance. 


THE  TRELOARS  339 

"  Do  you  know  what  went  through  my  mind  just  now, 
Dan?  It  was  the  answer  of  a  Samoan  chief  to  a  mis- 
sionary who  urged  him  to  give  his  idea  of  God.  He  said : 
'  We  know  that  at  night  Some  One  goes  by  amongst 
the  trees,  but  we  never  speak  of  it.'  Doesn't  that  beau- 
tifully express  the  dim  consciousness  of  an  unknown 
power  without  us?  But  it  is  a  consciousness  mingled 
with  fear.  With  all  our  learning  and  all  our  ponder- 
ing, we  shall  never  get  any  nearer  to  a  definition  of 
God  than  that,  except  by  adding  that  Some  One  goes 
by  in  the  light  as  well  as  the  dark;  and  that  we  may 
speak  of  Him,  in  love  and  reverence  as  well  as  fear; 
and  we  may  give  that  unknown  another  name;  we  may 
call  it  Life  or  God,  if  you  like,  and  we  may  feel  the 
wonder  of  it  which  never  can  lessen  because  we  can 
never  explain  it;  and  we  may  cherish  it,  and  love  it 
and  preserve  it  at  its  best.  That  is  the  whole  duty  of 
man,  and  in  that  duty  there  is  no  place  for  hatred,  no 
place  for  war." 

"  That  sounds  pretty,  Dick,  and  it  wouldn't  be  hard 
to  make  a  new  faith  of  it,  if  reality  didn't  give  it 
such  a  tremendous  slap  in  the  face.  You  must  excuse 
my  expressions.  I  can't  talk  like  you;  but  I'll  tell  you 
what  I've  observed  about  life.  I  don't  find  in  it,  that 
oneness  of  purpose  which  could  justify  its  being  spoken 
of  as  a  conscious  entity,  as  God,  in  short.  The  truth  is 
that  all  the  various  manifestations  of  life  are  at  war 
with  one  another:  the  grass  lives  at  the  expense  of  the 
soil;  the  sheep  eats  the  grass,  and  man  eats  the  sheep. 
Instead  of  being  an  interchange  of  admirations  and  mu- 
tual support,  it's  an  interchange  of  hostilities,  of  life  and 
death." 

Dick  colored  to  the  roots  of  his  hair.  He  felt  that 
he  had  been  talking  in  a  foolish,  ambiguous  way  which 
meant  absolutely  nothing  to  the  homely  practical  un- 
derstanding which  he  was  addressing;  so  he  said  with 
frankness : 

"  Dan,  I've  been  talking  like  a  fool,  and  I  am  very 


340  THE  TRELOARS 

grateful  to  you  for  knocking  me  off  my  pedestal.  The 
truth  is  that  I  come  from  a  line  of  clergymen,  though 
they  were  free  thinkers  every  one  of  them;  but  they 
passed  on  to  their  descendants  a  certain  vicious  twist  in 
their  language  that  shows  the  fatal  attempt  to  reconcile 
their  hearts  and  their  heads  which  were  always  on  the 
verge  of  a  divorce.  They  believed  in  God  every  one 
of  them,  and  loved  Him  with  all  their  hearts;  but  they 
never  tried  to  define  him  except  by  such  sweeping  terms 
as  the  omniscient,  the  eternal,  the  all  powerful.  But 
little  by  little,  the  conception  grew  vaguer  and  vaguer, 
till  the  word  God  came  to  mean  simply  the  impersonal 
unknown  source  of  life  and  energy;  and  religion,  a  rev- 
erential and  admiring  attitude  towards  the  unknown.  I 
grant  that  I  used  the  word  God  ambiguously  to  those 
who  are  accustomed  to  associate  with  it  the  orthodox 
Christian  interpretation;  and  it  isn't  right  to  increase 
the  confusion  of  thinking  on  so  vital  a  matter.  I  do 
not  know,  and  no  man  knows  what  that  power  is,  of 
which  we  are  one  of  the  manifestations.  We  can  only 
make  crude  guesses,  more  or  less  erroneous:  but  we 
know  that  it  exists,  and  that  we  on  this  earth  are  the 
most  developed  form  of  it.  In  other  worlds,  there  may 
be  still  more  wonderful  manifestations  of  it,  compared 
with  which  we  are  as  the  ant  to  us." 

The  two  young  men  had  been  walking  in  the  forest 
path  and  had  now  reached  a  clearing  on  a  gentle  slope 
covered  by  an  apple  orchard  in  full  bloom.  The  sweet 
delicate  perfume  of  the  blossoms  filled  the  air.  Bees 
were  humming  about  them,  and  the  long  grass  under 
the  trees  was  strewn  with  fallen  petals.  A  low,  irregu- 
lar stone  wall  ran  along  the  southern  limits  of  the  orchard, 
and  wild  grasses  and  low  ferns  were  growing  in  its 
chinks  and  on  its  ledges.  As  they  approached  the  wall, 
a  bluebird  flew  from  a  branch  overhanging  it,  and  the 
flash  of  its  brilliant  wings  made  the  blue  of  the  sky  look 
pale.  Dick  sat  down  on  the  wall  and  with  a  troubled 
thoughtful  face  looked  up  at  Dan  standing  before  him 
and  said: 


THE  TRELOARS  341 

"  I  haven't  made  myself  clear  to  you,  after  all,  have  I, 
Dan?" 

"  Yes,  you  have,  but  what  do  you  propose  to  do  about 
it?" 

"  I  wish  to  destroy  the  tryanny  of  things,  or,  at  any 
rate,  to  see  the  tryanny  destroyed." 

"  But  how  do  you  mean  to  attack  it,  or  help  in  its 
destruction?  It  doesn't  seem  to  me  possible,  nor  even 
desirable  that  all  men  should  be  lovers  and  poets  of 
the  right  sort,  and  so  far  as  I  can  make  out  that  seems 
to  be  the  character  of  your  reformation." 

Dick  smiled. 

"  Not  exactly,  Dan.  I  no  more  expect  all  men  to 
be  right  lovers  and  poets  than  I  expect  all  the  flowers 
of  the  orchard,  there,  to  set  in  fruit.  The  great  ma- 
jority of  them  will  wither  and  fall  to  the  ground.  It 
is  not  of  the  masses  I  am  thinking  just  now,  but  of 
the  leaders  of  the  masses,  of  the  men  to  whom  has 
been  given  the  power  to  ripen  and  who  fail  in  their 
duty  out  of  indifference,  or  fear  to  arouse  hostility,  or 
a  pitiful  spirit  of  easy  tolerance  towards  what  they  know 
to  be  bad." 

"  Or  maybe  they  don't  really  know,"  interpolated  Dan ; 
"maybe  they  are  victims  of  a  babyish  system  of  educa- 
tion that  turns  a  man  into  a  sucker  instead  of  a  thinker,  \ 
I  know  I've  suffered  from  it.  The  only  real  educa- 
tion I  have  ever  had,  I  got  from  you  and  my  field  ser- 
vice in  France,  and  I  am  hoping  now  that  you  —  and  — 
maybe  your  sister  will  take  a  hand  in  it  and  help  to 
polish  me  off.  Do  you  think  I'm  too  tough  a  job, 
Dick?" 

He  asked  the  question  with  a  shy  look  at  Dick,  then 
drew  out  a  cigar,  and  lighting  it,  puffed  at  it,  then 
coughed  vigorously,  as  if  the  smoke  had  got  into  his 
throat.  The  truth  is,  this  big,  robust,  careless-mannered, 
boyish-hearted  young  fellow  had  been  so  frightfully  in- 
discreet as  to  let  his  imagination  run  riot  over  the 
image  of  Dick's  sister. 


342  THE  TRELOARS 

Dick  looked  at  him  reassuringly,  and  answered : 

"  Dan,  you're  all  right.  Any  higher  polish  on  you 
would  make  you  too  sleek,  and  keep  us  from  seeing  the 
metal  for  the  shimmer.  My  sister  Margaret  is  one  of 
the  most  sensible  women  in  the  world.  She  knows  a 
good  thing  when  she  sees  it  and  is  never  taken  in  by 
surfaces.  As  soon  as  you  see  her,  you  will  feel  as 
if  you  had  always  known  her.  Everybody  says  that, 
for  she  fits  in  everywhere.  She  has  a  range  of  human 
sympathies  uncommonly  large  for  a  woman.  The  only 
fault  I  know  in  her  is  that  she  loves  father  and  me  more 
than  herself." 

"  Don't  call  that  a  fault,  Dick.  To  love  too  much  is 
the  highest  virtue  in  a  woman.  All  that  you've  said  in 
her  praise  may  make  a  good  comrade  of  her,  but  this 
last  touch,  this  fault,  as  you  call  it,  makes  her  ador- 
able. Yes  —  I  think  I  should  —  like  your  sister." 

He  turned  his  face  away  from  Dick  and  looked  out 
over  the  orchard  without  seeing  a  blossom  on  the  blos- 
som-laden trees ;  for  his  eyes  were  filled  with  an  inner 
vision ;  then  he  turned  again  to  Dick,  saying : 

"  We  start  to-morrow,  do  we  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  replied  Dick,  rising  from  his  seat  on  the  wall, 
"  I  must  send  a  telegram  to  Margaret  to  let  her  know 
just  when  to  expect  us." 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE  telegram,  curt,  but  to  the  point,  reached  Mar- 
garet the  evening  of  the  day  it  was  sent.  It  put  her 
into  a  flurry  of  excitement  and  joy  that  rejuvenated  her 
by  ten  years ;  for  a  pure  joy  is  a  great  humanizer,  and 
the  best  tonic  in  the  world  for  reddening  the  blood. 
Margaret  had  had  but  a  scanty  measure  of  it,  in  the 
past  two  years,  and  had  grown  spiritually  anaemic  for 
want  of  it.  The  outcome  of  the  mental  crisis  through 
which  she  had  passed  was  that  spirit  of  renunciation 


THE  TRELOARS  343 

which  sends  women  into  convents  and  men  to  solitary 
places  in  woods  and  deserts;  and  though  the  duties  of 
her  life  forbade  her  the  utter  renunciation  of  the  ascetic, 
nevertheless,  in  so  far  as  her  own  personal  desires  and 
affections  were  concerned,  she  had  cultivated  the  spirit 
of  asceticism,  in  an  ardent  longing  to  expiate  the  faults 
and  follies  of  her  too  loving  and  jealous  heart.  But 
it  was  impossible  for  her  to  kill  the  spirit  of  love  in 
her. 

At  the  time  of  Dick's  entrance  into  the  French  ambu- 
lance service,  her  anxiety  for  his  safety  awoke  in  her 
the  old  tenderness.  She  kept  a  diary,  and  sent  it  to 
him  every  week  in  the  form  of  a  letter.  In  imagina- 
tion, she  was  with  him  on  the  hospital  field,  helping  him 
in  his  task  of  mercy,  and  had  it  not  been  for  her  father, 
she  would  have  been  there,  in  person.  That  she  could 
not  do  this  was  a  cross  and  a  sacrifice  which  she  ac- 
cepted as  a  part  of  her  lot,  and  cheerfully  bore  in  the 
performance  of  her  nearer  duty  at  home.  The  strange 
vision  which  she  had  related  to  Dick,  made  a  profound 
impression  upon  her,  and  her  wonder  was  hardly  in- 
creased after  learning  the  facts  in  the  case.  It  was  then 
that  she  spoke  of  it  to  her  father  and  to  Dolly.  Her 
father  interpreted  it  as  one  of  those  incontestable  evi- 
dences of  telepathy  which  prove  the  immateriality  of 
the  soul  and  its  power  to  act  at  distances  independently 
of  the  body,  through  the  universal  diffusion  of  what, 
for  want  of  a  better  term,  he  would  call  mentiferous  ether 
—  mind  stuff  in  dispersion. 

Dolly  had  no  explanation,  and  her  perplexity  was  not 
cleared  up  by  her  father's  remark  that  the  evidences  re- 
corded of  these  remarkable  coincidences  were  not  fre- 
quent enough  to  warrant  Mr.  Treloar's  conclusions.  On 
the  contrary,  telepathy  could  not  be  a  general,  natural 
power  or  law  of  mind  and  at  the  same  time  be  so  ex- 
'clusively  restricted  to  an  exceedingly  small  number  of 
persons.  For  his  part,  he  thought  it  a  good  thing  that 
it  was  not.  How,  otherwise,  would  it  be  possible  to 


344  THE  TRELOARS 

preserve  the  sanctity  of  one's  personality  from  perpetual 
intrusion  ?  How  insufferable  it  would  be,  if  a  man  could 
not  keep  his  thoughts  to  himself,  but  they  must  be  travel- 
ing to  friend  and  foe  alike,  exposing  his  dearest  secrets. 
No,  all  human  experience  was  against  Treloar.  How- 
ever, it  made  a  fresh  subject  of  discussion  between  the 
two  old  friends,  and  it  introduced  a  new  person  of  in- 
terest to  all,  in  the  little  circle  of  old  acquaintance. 
There  would  be  a  warm  welcome  for  Dan  Holman,  when 
he  came. 

"  O,  Margaret,  you  look  lovely  to-day,  just  like  your 
old  self,"  exclaimed  Dolly  admiringly,  as  she  looked  at 
Margaret  on  the  bright  May  day  that  was  to  bring  the 
wanderers  home.  Mr.  Treloar  and  Dr.  Parker  had  gone 
to  the  station  in  Oakland  to  meet  them,  and  Dolly  and 
little  Eugene  were  over  at  the  Treloars,  and  Hannah 
had  come  over  with  them  to  help  Betty  prepare  a  famous 
feast  to  be  set  on  the  table  smoking  hot,  at  half-past 
one. 

"  You  look  just  like  your  old  self,"  repeated  Dolly. 
"  I  am  so  glad  you  put  on  that  white  dress.  You  al- 
ways look  so  beautiful  in  pure  white.  I  can't  wear  it 
with  my  black  skin.  I  most  always  have  an  ecru,  or 
cream  color." 

"  Dolly,  you  haven't  a  black  skin.  You  have  that 
loveliest  of  all  complexions,  the  rich  olive  which 
wears " 

"  Like  leather,"  interrupted  Dolly  with  a  laugh.  "  I 
don't  quarrel  with  my  complexion  for  its  wearing  quali- 
ties. I  don't  blister  in  the  sun  like  fair  women.  I  only 
bronze  and  redden  like  a  bit  of  well  beaten  copper.  But 
I  do  admire  very  much  your  white  and  pink,  like  baby 
Eugene's.  Doesn't  he  look  lovely?  Come  here,  sweet- 
heart, and  tell  Aunt  Margaret  who's  coming  to-day  ? " 

Dolly  knelt  before  the  child  who  was  immaculate  in 
a  new  white  dress,  with  a  short  full-pleated  skirt  reach- 
ing to  his  knees.  He  was  the  picture  of  health,  with 


THE  TRELOARS  345 

his  round  rose-flushed  cheeks,  and  his  bright  hazel  eyes, 
changing  in  color,  in  different  lights,  from  softest  brown 
to  richest  black.  He  had  a  dimple  in  his  chin,  and  his 
soft  brown  hair  curled  in  loose  natural  ringlets  all  over 
his  head. 

"  Favver  is  coming,"  answered  the  child,  reflecting  the 
smile  on  Dolly's  face. 

"  That's  right !  "  said  Dolly,  clasping  him  in  her  arms, 
with  an  approving  hug  which  disarranged  his  dress,  and 
set  her  to  smoothing  the  pleats. 

"  And  what  is  Eugene  going  to  say  when  father 
comes  ?  "  Dolly  went  on. 

The  child's  eyes  twinkled  with  mischief,  and  he  drew 
up  his  little  shoulders  with  suppressed  mirth,  as  he  an- 
swered : 

"  Muvver,  I  uv  you." 

"  No,  no,  no !  "  protested  Dolly,  feigning  vexation,  lift- 
ing him  from  the  floor  and  giving  him  a  little  toss  in  the 
air  that  made  him  shriek  with  laughter.  Setting  him 
down  on  the  floor  again,  she  continued : 

"  No,  no !  Not,  mother,  I  love  you ;  but  father  I 
love  you.  Come  now,  say  it  for  mother  and  Aunt  Mar- 
garet, like  a  good,  lovely  boy." 

But  the  good  lovely  boy  was  too  much  amused  by 
Dolly's  disappointment  to  be  flattered  into  spoiling  the 
game,  too  soon;  so  he  repeated  the  objectionable  formula 
amid  other  tosses  and  peals  of  laughter,  until,  at  last, 
Dolly  quite  serious,  assumed  an  air  of  grief  which  moved 
the  child  to  put  his  arms  about  her,  and  nestle  his  head 
against  her  neck,  touching  it  with  his  moist  lips,  as  he 
half-whispered : 

"  Favver,  I  uv  you." 

"  You  darling !  "  Dolly  pressed  her  lips  to  his  curly 
head,  then  set  him  down  on  the  floor  and  looked  with 
loving  triumph  at  Margaret. 

"  Now,  you  can  run  out  into  the  garden,  love,  and 
find  the  prettiest  roses,  then  come  back  and  tell  mother 
where  they  are :  but  don't  muss  your  clothes,  like  a  good 


346  THE  TRELOARS 

boy.  We  want  to  be  nice  and  clean  for  father.  I  have 
hardly  talked  to  him  about  anything  else  for  a  week," 
said  Dolly,  when  the  child  was  gone.  "  I  want  him  to 
feel  at  home  with  Dick,  as  soon  as  he  sees  him ;  so  that 
Dick  won't  have  that  chilling  sense  of  estrangement  be- 
tween himself  and  his  own  flesh  and  blood.  That  must 
be  such  a  cruel  feeling.  Don't  you  think  so,  Mar- 
garet?" 

"  O  yes,  there's  nothing  crueler ;  no  tie  so  close  as 
that  of  blood ;  no  estrangement  so  bitter ;  but  we've  kept 
Dick  so  closely  in  touch  with  the  baby  by  letters  and 
pictures,  that  he  won't  be  surprised  at  seeing  him  running 
about,  though  he  left  him  in  the  cradle :  and  as  for  chil- 
dren, at  that  age,  they  so  quickly  pick  up  with  anybody 
who  is  kind  to  them,  that  Eugene  will  soon  learn  to 
love  his  father:  so,  I  haven't  been  thinking  about  that 
so  much  as  how  we  shall  make  Dick's  friend  feel  per- 
fectly at  home.  We  owe  it  to  his  great  kindness  and 
care  that  Dick  is  alive  to  come  home  to  us,  and  I  am  so 
grateful  to  him,  so  deeply,  so  unutterably  grateful  to 
him." 

A  warm  color  spread  over  Margaret's  face,  and  her 
eyes  dimmed  a  little. 

"  Yes,  I  know  it,"  said  Dolly  gently,  "  but  he  will  feel 
at  home.  Nobody  ever  comes  here  who  doesn't." 

"  Yes,  but  don't  you  know,  Dolly,  that  sometimes  just 
because  you  feel  so  very  deeply,  you  can't  show  it  at 
all.  You  seem  to  be  struck  dumb,  while  every  drop 
of  blood  in  your  heart  is  speaking  a  language  of  its  own 
that  no  one  but  yourself  can  hear." 

"  Yes,  I  know  that,  too ;  and  you  are  called  cold  at 
such  times,  just  because  you  feel  too  warmly  to  express 
yourself.  It  is  strange,  isn't  it?  But  let's  not  think  of 
that.  I  want  you  to  have  a  spray  of  pink  roses  at  your 
belt,  and  I  am  going  to  choose  some  crimson  ones  for 
myself.  Let's  go  out  and  see  what  our  boy  has  found. 
Shall  I  find  the  garden  shears  in  the  kitchen  ?  " 

"  Yes,  hanging  on  a  nail  near  the  sink.  Betty  will 
give  them  to  you." 


THE  TRELOARS  347 

Dolly  got  them  herself  and  followed  Margaret  into 
the  garden,  where  the  sun  was  shining  bright  and  warm. 
The  green  hills  lifted  their  rounded  domes  sharply  against 
the  blue  sky,  not  an  outline  blurred  —  and  far  away  to 
the  west,  through  an  opening  in  the  hills,  gleamed  the 
sunlit  bosom  of  the  ocean.  An  exquisite  serenity  seemed 
to  breathe  from  the  landscape,  and  Margaret  tightening 
her  grasp  on  Dolly's  hand,  said : 

"  What  a  perfect  day !  Dolly,  does  it  seem  to  you  as 
if  there  were  a  sacred  quiet  in  the  air,  as  if  nature,  like 
us,  felt  too  deeply  for  any  expression  except  this  per- 
fect calmness,  under  which  beats  so  strongly  the  throb- 
bing tides  of  life." 

"  O  Lady !  We  receive  but  what  we  give,"  quoted 
Dolly. 

"  Yes,  I  know  those  lines  from  Coleridge.  How  beau- 
tifully they  sum  up  the  whole  question  of  the  wretched- 
ness and  emptiness  of  life  without  love;  poor  and  anxious 
we  are,  indeed,  when  we  are  loveless;  seeking  every- 
where for  happiness  which  cannot  exist  for  us,  unless  it 
has  its  seat  in  our  own  breast." 

Then,  abruptly  changing  the  subject,  as  if  she  dared 
not  continue  it  without  betraying  undue  emotion,  she 
went  on : 

"  I  had  a  letter  from  Catherine,  yesterday.  She  is 
still  living  in  a  perpetual  search  for  something  new,  and 
when  she  finds  it,  it  does  not  content  her  long.  How  ex- 
hausting such  a  life  would  be  to  me!  She  is  interested 
just  now  in  dancing;  she  finds  in  the  perfection  of  mo- 
tion the  only  thing  worth  talking  about  or  thinking  about, 
and  she  pities  me  for  not  sharing  her  enthusiasm :  and  I 
pity  her  for  not  wishing  to  have  little  children  dancing 
about  her  instead.  But  she  does  not  want  children.  She 
says  that  she  can't  sacrifice  her  own  development  for 
them;  and,  that  bringing  children  into  the  world  is  a 
responsibility  which  no  wise  person  will  undertake  with- 
out assurance  that  they  will  turn  out  well.  The  de- 
mands of  modern  life  are  much  more  exacting  than  they 


348  THE  TRELOARS 

used  to  be,  she  says.  Dolly,  sometimes,  I  think  that 
thinking  is  not  a  good  thing  for  everybody." 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  think,  Margaret.  If  the 
world  wouM  just  stop  confusing  its  poor  old  head  for  a 
little  while  and  mind  its  own  business,  tend  to  its  knitting 
and  to  its  garden,  we'd  get  along  a  good  deal  better." 

"  Perhaps  that  is  what  Christ  meant  when  he  said  that 
unless  we  became  as  little  children,  we  should  not  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Look  at  our  baby,  there,  filling 
his  lap  with  roses,  bless  his  little  heart!  What  are  you 
doing,  darling  ?  " 

"  Powers  for  muwer ! "  answered  the  child,  turning 
his  head  hastily,  and  in  doing  so,  dropped  some  roses 
from  his  upgathered  skirt. 

"  Yes,  dear,  but  mother  wants  stems  to  them,  so  we 
won't  pull  any  more  short  ones,  will  we?  Here,  Dolly, 
is  a  lovely  cluster  of  deep  red  roses." 

"And  I've  found  the  sweetest  cluster  of  pink  ones 
for  you ;  see  here !  Let  me  clip  off  the  thorns,  before 
I  slip  them  through  your  belt.  There  you  are ;  they  look 
so  pretty  against  the  white." 

Dolly  stepped  backwards  to  look  admiringly  at  Mar- 
garet, and  Margaret  looked  down  at  her  roses :  then 
suddenly  lifted  her  head  with  an  expression  of  startled 
joy. 

"O  Dolly!    They're  coming!" 

Dolly  dropped  her  shears  by  the  rose  bush,  and  her 
cheeks  glowed  redder  than  any  rose  of  them  all.  She 
turned  to  the  child,  and  lifting  him  in  her  arms,  followed 
Margaret,  who  was  rapidly  advancing  towards  the  car- 
riage way. 

Yes,  there  they  were  in  the  open  carriage,  Dick  on  the 
front  seat  with  his  father,  swinging  his  hat;  and  a  big 
manly-looking  young  fellow  in  the  back  seat  with  Dr. 
Parker  took  off  his  hat  and  swung  it,  too,  as  if  it 
were  a  rapture  of  home-coming  for  him  as  well  as  for 
Dick. 

Dick  hardly  waited  for  the  swift  horses  to  stop  at  the 


THE  TRELOARS  349 

house,  before  he  was  out  on  the  grass,  with  his  arms 
about  Margaret  and  his  face  pressed  close  to  hers.  Then 
he  turned  to  Dolly  and  encircling  her  and  the  child,  kissed 
them  both.  Dolly  trembling  like  a  leaf,  with  the  color 
in  her  cheeks  ebbing  back  to  her  heart,  then  rushing  in 
a  red  tide  over  her  face,  said  not  a  word;  but  Dick 
knew  what  the  tell-tale  blood  was  saying,  and  he  liked  it 
better  than  speech.  He  took  the  child  from  her  arms, 
saying : 

"  Do  you  know  your  father,  little  man  ?  " 

Dolly  would  have  given  anything  if  the  well-learned 
lesson  could  have  been  glibly  recited :  Father  I  love  you; 
but  the  obstinate,  rosy  mouth  puckered  into  a  pitiful  ex- 
pression of  strangeness  and  discomfort,  and  instead  of 
the  pretty  speech  so  well  prepared,  came  the  ungracious 
request : 

"  Muvver  take  me." 

Then  Dolly  found  her  tongue  again. 

"  He  doesn't  know  you  yet,  Dick ;  but  he  knows  all 
about  you,  and  he  loves  you;  he  really  does,  and  he'll 
soon  learn  not  to  feel  strange  with  you." 

She  took  the  child,  and  he  buried  his  face  on  her 
shoulder.  Dick  seeing  Dolly's  distress,  assured  her  that 
it  was  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  for  the  child 
to  feel  strange  with  him.  Dolly  stroked  the  child's  head 
fondly  and  looked  towards  Margaret  who  was  talking 
with  Dan  in  the  most  animated  way.  Dick's  eyes  fol- 
lowed Dolly's  with  a  look  of  delight. 

"  Well,  there  are  two  who  don't  feel  strange  to  each 
other.  Isn't  that  fine?  Come  let  me  introduce  him  to 
you.  Dan,  here  is  the  rest  of  the  family.  This  is 
Dolly." 

Dan  turned  his  radiant  face  from  Margaret,  and 
clasped  Dolly's  extended  hand  with  unfeigned  heartiness. 

"  You'll  let  me  call  you  Dolly,  too,  won't  you  ?  "  he 
asked  in  the  gentle,  insinuating  way  of  a  boy  who  is 
asking  a  favor  which  he  wishes  granted  willingly.  "  I 
have  just  been  saying  that  I  can't  call  Dick's  sister  Miss 


350  THE  TRELOARS 

Treloar.  It  sounds  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  I'm 
here:  and  I  can't  say  Miss  Parker,  either,  for  the  same 
reason.  You  know  it  has  been  Margaret  and  Dolly  when- 
ever we  spoke  of  you,  and  that  wasn't  seldom,  was  it 
Dick?" 

"  No,  we  spoke  of  you  very  often,  and  we  are  not 
going  to  spoil  our  pleasure  in  being  together,  by  any 
ridiculous  formality.  We're  all  Dick  and  Dan  and  Dolly, 
here." 

"  And  Margaret !  "  added  Dan,  turning  to  her  with  a 
smile. 

Then  he  stooped,  and  lifting  the  child  as  high  as  his 
arms  could  reach,  looked  up  at  him  with  so  rollicking  and 
jovial  an  air  that  the  child's  reserve  broke  away  like  a 
cloud  in  the  path  of  the  sun,  and  he  laughed  back  at 
the  kind  handsome  face,  and  let  Dan  cuddle  him  close  to 
his  breast,  and  kiss  his  forehead,  without  any  show  of 
reluctance. 

"  My !  but  he's  a  handsome  boy.  How  proud  you  must 
be  of  him,  Dick." 

"  Yes,  I  am,  and  I  am  proud  of  the  girl  that  raised 
him." 

Here  Mr.  Treloar,  who  had  been  giving  some  directions 
about  the  young  men's  luggage  to  the  stable  boy  who 
came  for  the  horses,  joined  the  group  with  the  re- 
mark: 

"  Well,  don't  you  think  we'd  better  go  into  the  house 
and  see  what  kind  of  dinner  these  girls  have  got  for  us  ?  " 

"  Yes,  we  must  go  in,"  said  Margaret,  "  Dick  will 
you  show  Dan  to  his  room,  the  blue  one,  next  yours  ? " 

The  familiar  name  slipped  as  easily  from  her  tongue, 
as  if  she  had  used  it  from  childhood,  and  Dan  in  his 
gratitude  said :  "  Thank  you,  Margaret." 

He  could  have  sung  aloud  for  joy  that  this  woman  of 
his  dreams  was  even  sweeter  and  more  lovable  than  he 
had  imagined  her;  and  as  he  followed  Dick  silently  up 
the  broad,  polished  stairway  and  into  the  bright,  cheer- 
ful room  assigned  him,  his  heart  was  swelling  with  an 
emotion  so  intense  as  to  be  almost  painful. 


THE  TRELOARS  351 

"  Why,  Dick,  this  is  heaven !  "  he  cried.  "  I  feel  like 
a  regenerated  fallen  angel  that  had  somehow  sneaked 
into  Paradise  when  the  doors  were  left  open,  and  meant 
to  be  so  good  that  nobody  would  ever  have  the  heart  to 
turn  him  out  again." 

"  Well,  it's  home,  Dan,  and  it's  good  to  be  home." 

"  Yes,  it's  good  to  be  home,"  repeated  Dan,  turning  to 
the  broad  mirror  over  the  toilet  table  and  attempting  to 
reduce  a  refractory  kink  in  his  hair,  with  a  moistened 
brush.  He  scorned  it  as  something  effeminate  and  liked 
to  wear  his  hair  cut  very  short  to  keep  it  from  showing. 
After  plastering  it  smoothly  down  to  his  satisfaction,  he 
said: 

"  I  ought  to  have  had  my  hair  cut  before  we  left  New 
York,  but  we  came  off  in  such  a  hurry  that  I  forgot 
all  about  it.  That  kink  in  it  makes  me  look  like  a  head 
waiter." 

The  dinner  proved  to  be  a  great  success.  The  turkey 
was  done  to  a  turn  —  white,  juicy,  tender  beneath  the 
crisp  golden-brown  outer  skin.  The  vegetables  retained 
their  flavor  and  color.  The  pie-crust  was  but  a  melting 
hint  of  resistance  to  its  delicious  contents.  The  fruits 
and  nuts  were  such  as  only  California  can  produce;  and 
best  of  all,  the  partakers  of  the  feast  were  united  in  a 
single  sentiment  of  affection  and  good  will.  No  one 
had  the  heart  to  hint  at  the  great  tragedy  of  Europe. 
Treloar  and  Parker  avoided  their  perennial  discussions 
of  lofty  and  incommunicable  themes,  and  yielding  to  the 
mirthful,  gracious  influence  of  their  youthful  companions 
cracked  jokes  and  told  stories  with  the  best  of  them. 
Even  Eugene  had  his  part  in  the  general  mirth,  and  sit- 
ting next  to  Dan,  who  could  deny  him  nothing,  had  more 
than  his  share  of  the  good  things  to  eat,  in  consequence 
of  which  he  succumbed  ignominiously  before  the  dinner 
was  over,  and  was  carried  upstairs  asleep,  to  be  laid  on 
the  bed. 

"  What  a  lovely  day  we  have  had ! "  was  Dolly's  com- 
ment to  her  father,  on  returning  home  late  that  night. 


352  THE  TRELOARS 

"There  was  only  one  little  disappointment  in  it  for  me, 
and  that  was  that  Eugene  did  not  seem  to  take  to  his 
father  as  I  hoped  he  would,  and  he  liked  Dan.  Isn't  it 
strange?  And  I  have  talked  so  much  to  him  about 
Dick." 

"  No,  it  is  not  strange.  It  is  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world.  A  child  has  an  almost  unfailing  instinct 
with  regard  to  those  who  love  it.  In  consequence,  it 
has  an  unfailing  instinct  of  jealousy.  Dick  paid  more 
attention  to  you  than  he  did  to  Eugene,  and  the  child 
felt  obscurely  a  rival  in  him.  You  will  have  to  be  very 
careful  both  of  you,  not  to  make  him  unhappy.  But 
try  to  keep  your  own  head  cool,  Dolly." 

Dolly  blushed  vividly  and  said  nothing  further  on  the 
subject,  but  when  she  was  alone,  she  revolved  it  in  her 
mind  in  all  its  phases.  Was  Dick  going  away  again? 
Dolly's  heart  rebelled  against  that  easy  solution.  No  — 
he  must  stay.  In  that  case,  she  must  stand  between 
these  two  natures  so  closely  related,  yet  perhaps  so  widely 
apart  in  taste  and  temperament.  She  must  bridge  over 
that  difference  between  them  and  teach  them  to  love  one 
another.  She  would  suffer  herself,  undoubtedly,  drawn 
now  to  this  side,  now  to  that ;  but  what  did  her  own  per- 
sonal suffering  matter?  She  had  served  her  apprentice- 
ship at  that;  it  was  an  old  experience  now.  If  she  could 
only  make  them  happy  ultimately  in  each  other,  and 
content  with  herself,  that  would  be  joy  enough  for  her. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

ALONE  in  his  room  that  night,  at  the  end  of  so  happy 
a  day,  Dick  reflected  on  his  own  individual  problems  long 
and  steadily.  He  did  not  play  hide-and-seek  with  him- 
self. He  faced  the  situation  squarely;  for  youth  was 
having  its  way  with  him,  as  it  has  with  all  of  us,  tempt- 
ing him  again  with  the  dream  of  bright  eyes  kindling 
brighter  when  they  met  his  own,  and  echoes  of  a  be- 


THE  TRELOARS  353 

loved  voice  lingering  in  the  porches  of  his  ears,  quicken- 
ing his  pulses  with  their  soft  endearing  whispers;  and 
though  he  had  not  abated  one  jot  of  his  resolution  to  go 
on  with  his  task,  it  was  accompanied  with  an  unquench- 
able longing  for  a  home  of  his  own,  a  quiet  place  where 
his  heart  and  mind  could  be  at  rest,  and  in  that  home, 
Dolly  was  queen.  He  loved  her  dearly  —  he  knew  it 
now  —  not  with  the  restless,  tumultuous,  insane  obses- 
sion of  his  first  passion,  that  had  swept  over  him  like  a 
fierce  flame,  but  with  a  wide  generous  beautiful  devo- 
tion, deep-rooted  in  a  confidence  that  cast  out  fear.  How 
sweet  and  wholesome  she  seemed  to  him,  radiant  with 
health  and  purity.  How  sane  and  clear  her  outlook  on 
life  —  true  to  duty,  as  the  compass  to  the  pole,  but  with- 
out repellent  asceticism  and  full  of  a  cheerful  elasticity  / 
that  made  her  a  delightful  comrade.  There  was  a  fresh- 
ness about  her  as  of  dewy  forests  in  the  early  dawn. 
How  could  he  ever  have  been  so  indifferent  to  that  as 
to  prefer  the  hot  and  artificially  perfumed  atmosphere  of 
the  theater  ?  "  We  needs  must  love  the  highest  when 
we  see  it."  Alas !  he  had  not  seen  it.  He  saw  it  now. 
It  had  been  the  fascination  of  mystery  and  danger,  the 
foolish  indifference  to  the  known  and  the  familiar  which 
had  seduced  him;  and  led  him  to  search  for  happiness 
abroad  when  all  the  while,  it  lay  close  at  hand.  He  had 
chosen  like  a  foolish  boy,  then.  He  was  a  man,  now, 
and  he  would  not  longer  delay  gathering  his  own  to 
himself.  So,  thinking  and  dreaming  and  conjuring  up 
an  image  of  Dolly  in  a  score  of  scenes,  he  fell  at  last 
into  a  broken  slumber,  and  awoke  with  the  dawn. 

The  images  of  the  restless  night  awoke  with  him,  and 
condensed  themselves  into  the  audibly  expressed  reso- 
lution :  "  I'll  do  it  to-day."  He  threw  off  the  light  cov- 
erlet, sprang  out  of  bed,  took  his  bath,  dressed  himself 
carefully,  and  stole  softly  down  stairs;  for  no  one  else 
was  astir  in  the  house.  When  he  closed  the  door  be- 
hind him,  he  stopped  on  the  veranda  a  moment  to  look 
at  his  watch.  It  would  be  nearly  three  hours  before 


354  THE  TRELOARS 

breakfast  would  be  ready.  He  had  time  for  a  long 
ramble  over  the  hills,  and  could  watch  the  sun  break 
through  the  bank  of  blue-gray  cloud  that  lay  along  the 
eastern  sky.  He  walked  rapidly  up  the  path  that  led  to 
the  entrance  gate  opening  on  the  Tunnel  Road.  He 
paused  under  the  group  of  eucalyptus  trees  near  the 
gate,  hesitating  as  to  whether  he  should  strike  across 
the  hills  or  follow  the  open  road  to  the  east;  and  in  that 
moment  of  uncertainty  there  flashed  through  his  mind 
the  memory  of  Max  Gietmann,  standing  there  with  him 
just  three  years  before.  How  short  a  space  of  time,  yet 
how  long  it  seemed,  crowded  as  it  was,  with  so  many 
deep  experiences.  Poor  Max!  How  bitter  and  love- 
less, how  solitary  and  unapproachable  his  short  life  had 
been.  Perhaps  fate  had  been  merciful  in  not  prolong- 
ing it.  Dick  could  not  think  of  him  without  yearning 
pity  and  the  wish  to  restore  him  in  his  memory  as  he 
had  first  known  him,  bright,  eager,  sensitive  to  beauty 
in  form  and  color,  sensitive  to  moral  beauty  in  truth 
and  justice,  and  so,  thinking  of  him  tenderly,  he  gave 
to  him  the  credit  of  his  virtues,  and  laid  his  faults  to  the 
age  in  which  he  lived. 

The  sun  was  touching  the  blue-gray  opaque  cloud  with 
a  soft  bright  edge  of  silver  and  gold,  and  Dick  started 
briskly  on  towards  the  east,  taking  the  open  road.  When 
he  came  to  a  turn  in  it,  where  a  broad  green  valley  opens 
up  to  the  right,  he  stopped  again,  to  watch  the  light  break 
slowly  through  the  dark  heavy  cloud,  tinging  it  at  first 
with  a  warm  reddish  purple ;  then  shredding  it  into  bright 
edged  bands,  and  curdling  them  into  soft,  silvery,  fleecy 
masses  that  floated  into  the  living  blue  which  but  a  little 
while  before  had  been  a  dull  lifeless  gray.  Finally  the 
whole  eastern  sky  was  transfused  with  a  golden  glow, 
and  the  sun  burst  forth  in  his  splendor,  giving  a  new  light 
and  glory  to  the  world. 

Dick's  heart  beat  fast,  as  he  read  this  great  poem 
which  nature  writes  daily  on  the  broad  blue  arch  of  the 
sky.  It  seemed  to  him  a  symbol  of  life,  heavy,  opaque, 


THE  TRELOARS  355 

dreary,  till  the  light  of  a  great  and  noble  emotion  trans- 
figures it.  He  thought  again  of  the  vain  boast  of  his 
age  that  every  school-house  opened,  shuts  the  door  of 
a  prison ;  that  science,  sweeping  away  the  useless  clutter 
of  superstitious  and  idle  faiths  has  built  a  strong  and 
solid  refuge  for  the  intellect  and  the  heart ;  because  men 
may  grow  in  virtue  and  sympathy,  as  they  grow  in 
knowledge.  Ay,  that  may  be  true,  but  not  on  the  knowl- 
edge which  is  but  the  accumulation  of  facts. 

After  a  long  brisk  walk  he  looked  at  his  watch.  It 
was  half-past  eight.  Breakfast  was  over.  He  was  a 
long  way  from  home,  and  only  a  ten  minutes  walk  from 
the  Parkers.  He  would  go  there  and  telephone  Mar- 
garet where  he  was,  lest  she  might  be  uneasy  about  him. 
He  quickened  his  pace,  looking  neither  to  the  right  nor 
to  the  left.  An  involuntary  smile  played  about  his  lips. 
He  was  framing  his  greeting  to  Dolly,  and  making  some 
jesting  excuse  for  an  unseasonable  appearance,  and 
Dolly  was  answering  with  a  smile  and  a  heightened 
color  in  her  cheeks.  So  vivid  was  his  imagination,  that 
Dolly's  sudden  opening  of  the  door  and  appearance  on 
the  veranda  before  he  had  reached  it,  swept  all  his  fine 
speeches  away  and  left  him  in  a  stupid  confusion,  which 
Dolly  dissipated  by  her  eager  exclamation : 

"  O  Dick,  I  am  so  glad  you've  come !  I  saw  you  from 
the  window  and  I  couldn't  wait  till  you  came  into  the 
house." 

There  was  so  much  of  earnest  gratitude  in  Dolly's 
face  and  voice,  that  Dick  knew  that  something  unusual 
had  happened,  and  a  sudden  fear  seized  him. 

"What  is  it,  Dolly?" 

Dolly  knew  by  his  anxious  face  and  voice  that  she 
had  unnecessarily  alarmed  him,  and  she  smiled  reas- 
suringly. 

"  Nothing  serious.  I  think  it's  all  right  now.  Eugene 
has  been  sick  all  night  with  a  high  fever  and  nausea. 
Father  and  I  have  been  up  with  him;  and  I  have  been 
so  wretchedly  miserable  and  anxious;  but  he's  resting 


356  THE  TRELOARS 

quietly  now,  and  father  has  gone  to  lie  down  for  an 
hour  or  so.  He  has  never  been  sick  before,  and  that  is 
why  I  was  so  terribly  afraid.  Father  said  it  was  only 
an  acute  fit  of  indigestion.  I  wasn't  careful  of  him  yes- 
terday, as  I  should  have  been;  and  he  ate  too  heartily 
of  sweet  and  greasy  things.  And  O  Dick,  it  lay  such 
a  weight  on  my  conscience  that  I  had  been  careless  about 
him.  Do  you  want  to  see  him  ?  " 

"  Indeed  I  do !  Besides,  it  is  time  the  little  rascal  was 
getting  acquainted  with  his  father." 

She  turned  and  preceded  him  to  her  bed-room  with  its 
rose-bowered  window  and  its  outlook  on  the  hills.  The 
child  was  lying  asleep  on  the  bed.  The  short  brown 
curls  about  his  forehead  were  moist  with  sweat,  and  the 
flush  on  the  plump  round  cheek  was  the  flush  of  health, 
not  fever. 

"  You  see  the  fever  is  quite  gone,"  said  Dolly  in  a  low 
voice,  bending  over  and  laying  her  hand  in  his  forehead. 
"  Isn't  he  sweet,  Dick  ?  "  She  was  hungry  to  hear  some 
praise  of  him,  and  to  see  Dick's  eye  kindle  at  sight  of 
him;  and  she  was  not  disappointed.  The  contagion  of 
her  generous  affection  stirred  Dick's  heart  towards  the 
child  as  it  had  not  been  stirred  before;  he  bent  over 
him  and  kissed  him  tenderly,  feeling  that  the  little  lad 
was  born  again  to  him  through  Dolly's  love. 

He  turned  from  the  child,  and  found  himself  looking 
into  the  depths  of  Dolly's  bright,  frank  eyes,  and  looking 
he  could  no  longer  conceal  the  secret  lying  on  his  heart. 
With  simple,  unstudied  words  he  told  her  that  he  could 
not  endure  to  see  her  carry  alone  a  weight  that  belonged 
to  him,  or  if  she  chose,  would  belong  to  them  both.  Yet 
it  was  not  consideration  which  led  him  to  speak,  it  was 
a  more  selfish  one;  it  was  his  own  happiness  which  she 
held  in  her  two  little  hands.  All  night  long,  while  she 
was  watching  by  his  boy,  his  thoughts  had  been  with 
her,  and  he  had  determined  to  ask  her  some  time,  to-day, 
if  she  would  consent  to  share  her  life  with  him. 

Dolly,   flushing  and   paling,   listened   with   down-cast 


THE  TRELOARS  357 

head  and  tear-filled  eyes,  and  when  he  waited  for  her 
answer,  she  could  not  trust  herself  to  speak,  but  put  her 
hand  into  his,  and  lifting  her  head  smiled  at  him  through 
her  tears.  He  knew  that  the  tears  and  the  smile  and 
the  pressure  of  the  hand  meant,  yes,  and  that  the  day 
had  dawned  anew  for  them  both. 

When  Margaret  turned  from  the  telephone  after  re- 
ceiving Dick's  message,  she  said  with  a  peculiar  smile 
to  Dan  who  was  standing  near  her : 

"  Dick  is  over  at  Dolly's." 

"  Is  he  ?     May  I  stay  to  the  wedding,  Margaret  ?  " 

"  You  may  stay  as  long  as  you  like." 

"  Be  careful.     Suppose  I  should  like  never  to  go  ?  " 

Margaret  did  not  answer  that  question,  but  said  rather 
abruptly : 

"  Do  you  know  I  should  like  to  see  Dolly  marry  Dick. 
You  don't  know  what  a  treasure  she  is;  and  then  she 
shouldn't  have  the  care  of  that  child  all  alone.  Dick 
should  share  it  with  her." 

They  were  married  in  June  at  Dr.  Parker's,  where 
Dick  would  henceforth  make  his  home,  that  Dolly  and 
her  father  might  not  be  separated.  The  doctor  was  very 
happy  over  the  marriage,  feeling  at  last  quite  secure 
against  any  further  prospect  of  Dolly's  leaving  him  or 
filling  the  house  with  strange  waifs,  instead  of  his  own 
grandchildren.  In  fact,  everybody  concerned,  was 
equally  happy.  The  only  regret  that  disturbed  the  gen- 
eral felicity  was  the  fact  that  Dan  was  to  leave  on  the 
morrow.  In  the  few  weeks  he  had  passed  with  the  Tre- 
loars,  he  had  endeared  himself  to  every  one.  His  cheer- 
ful humor,  his  plain  common  sense,  his  power  of  adjust- 
ing himself  admirably  to  every  situation  that  arose,  cre- 
ated about  him  an  atmosphere  of  good  will  which  brought 
out  the  best  traits  of  his  associates  and  made  them 
feel  that  it  was  good  to  be  with  him. 

We  think  that  we  admire  and  love  powerful  original 


358 


THE  TRELOARS 


characters,  and  we  do  in  a  way,  but  it  is  a  very  cold 
way.  They  do  not  take  possession  of  us  and  hold  us, 
keep  us  awake  at  nights,  and  trouble  us  with  a  thousand 
delusions  of  passionate  affection.  It  is  those  who  have 
all  the  human  weaknesses  who  do  that,  who  are  not  too 
clever  to  tire  us  with  the  pyrotechnic  display  of  their  wit, 
not  too  sensible  ever  to  excuse  a  lapse  of  sense ;  not  too 
prudent  never  to  be  guilty  of  a  lavish  generosity ;  not  too 
cold  ever  to  love  unwisely.  Was  Dan  loving  unwisely 
now,  in  loving  Margaret?  If  he  were,  it  was  a  lack  of 
wisdom  that  made  him  very  happy.  Then  why  was  he 
going  away  ?  Because-  Margaret  had  very  prudently  said : 
"  Wait !  "  Because  Margaret  was  not  at  all  sure  of  her- 
self, yet,  nor  sure  of  this  frank,  impetuous  boy,  who 
would  be  a  boy  when  his  hair  was  white.  He  had  ac- 
cepted the  "  Wait,"  with  a  glorious  hope,  and  he  was 
going  back  into  the  world  to  win  his  laurels,  to  add  the 
unit  of  his  endurance  and  skill  to  the  great  battle  of 
right  against  might.  And  if  he  were  destined  to  fall  in 
that  battle,  he  would  only  join  other  men,  and  far  bet- 
ter men  than  he,  who  had  fallen  before  him  in  the  spirit 
of  that  noble  sacrifice  so  admirably  voiced  by  Emerson : 


"  Though  love  repine  and  reason  chafe, 
There  came  a  voice  without  reply, 
'Tis  man's  perdition  to  be  safe. 
When  for  the  truth  he  ought  to  die." 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


«J  U< . 


Dua  Two  Weeks  FromlOate  of  Receipt 


W. 
v, 


SEP  02 1986 


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3  1158  01092  9403 


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